Scratch your own itch

In previous articles I have mentioned how important the solution is of problems to which you inherently know the answer. Getting things right is very hard to do, but is even further complicated when you are trying to solve a problem for someone else. Often they are problems you think you know the answer to, but actually aren’t technically savvy enough to accomplish them, or it isn’t your area of interest. Many successful products came about because the creator just needed a way to solve their own problem. It wasn’t the initial plan to sell it to customers, but the demand for a solution gave way to a new business.

Basecamp (or the “Jesus App” as I like to call it) is a perfect example of how a web design company was able to transform into a product company for small businesses that had similar problems. Jason Fried recounts how Basecamp came to be in the book" Getting Real.":http://gettingreal.37signals.com/toc.php

”A great way to build software is to start out by solving your own problems. You’ll be the target audience and you’ll know what’s important and what’s not. That gives you a great head start on delivering a breakout product."

He couldn’t be more right. You have to be the customer and the creator at the same moment in order to create something that will truly solve a problem once and for all. When you try to solve problems that aren’t your own, your product ends up either being too complicated or simple, which isn’t the solution.

The premise seems simple enough — don’t solve a problem you don’t have. For some reason, this isn’t the norm. Everyday, I speak with customers that seemingly have it all figured out for everyone except themselves. I recently spoke with two customers; one has seen no impact from the recent economic chaos, and the other has a scarcity of customers with the prospect of raising another round of financing looking bleak. Guess which one scratched their own itch and built a company founded on solving a real problem. Like Jason has stated time and time again, you need to get real in these times of uncertainty.

In a world where most medical records still exist on paper and we use paper voting ballots for the presidential elections, we don’t need another RSS blog syndication widget or another new way to embed music on your MySpace page. Instead, try investing your time into developing products that can help people save time, money, or increase awareness.

Basecamp was conceived in a downtrodden market, just a couple of years after the crash. They required no venture capital to start it, and 37signals continued to be a for-hire service company until the subscription application business could cover all its expenses. It was an era of practicability, followed by an era of impracticability where solving real problems and making money ran a close second to popularity. I believe we are about to enter another era of practicality, and it is time that more people developing products for the web start to think in that frame of mind.

So if you are about to embark on a new venture, heed this warning: start small, solve your own problems, and don’t quit your day job until you are absolutely certain that it will be a success.

This work is licensed through Creative Commons.

Posted on Nov 04, 2008 by Kevin Milden

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