I love listening to the origin story of a company. It’s always interesting to hear how founders came across a problem and figured out how they wanted to solve it. But sometimes I hear the opposite: a founder decided to build a solution and then tried to figure out how it could help customers.

I call this the solution-in-search-of-a-problem challenge. When founders build a solution without keeping the customer or problem in mind, they end up in a gray area. They build what they think people want instead of what people actually want. The solution ends up doing an OK job of solving a few problems but not a great job of solving any. Customers are reluctant to pay for it because it doesn’t create much value for them. The founders find themselves talking to different customers with different profiles in search of one that loves the product. They’ve often put so much time into building the solution that it’s hard for them to see that it’s not likely to succeed because it’s only an average solution.

If you’re an early founder, keep your focus on the problem and your customers so you can avoid building a solution in search of a problem.

I met with a founding team today to learn about their journey to date. They excitedly shared that they’d had a big realization that led to a breakthrough. The realization was insightful. I was curious to know how they came by this key piece of info, so I asked.

The founders had been building a product and getting feedback from customers for months. They thought they were building something that solved customers’ pain points, but the user sign-ups and engagement weren’t good.

The customers were still complaining about the problem, so the team was stumped. They had been asking customers how they could improve their app to make solving the problem easier, and they incorporated the responses in their product. One day, the CEO explained, he began asking different questions. He asked customers to share with him their current behaviors in running their business. He then asked what they were already doing to solve this problem (nothing). He learned they used many apps and were loath to try another one. He stopped asking how his company could make its app better and began asking how it could make life easier for them.

The team realized they were trying to get customers to change behavior and use another app. But their target customers are small businesses. The owners are stretched thin; they don’t have tons of free time. They’d rather lean into old habits than learn new ones.

The team noticed that the business owners communicated extensively via text messages, so they built a feature that allowed customers to communicate with the company’s app via text messages. Next thing they knew, engagement and sign-ups surged. Because the team asked the right questions and built a product that leverages existing behavior, it finally solved the problem in a way customers embrace.

The early parts of the founder journey are all about understanding the problem and your customer. Asking the right questions and paying attention to what your customers are already doing can be the key to building something they’ll love.

Chatting with an early founder about his plans to grow his company, I noticed he kept mentioning where the stock market could go if the recent downturn continues and the possibility of a recession in the short to medium term. This founder’s decisions are being affected by hypothetical future scenarios that are out of his control.

I quit my job and went full-time on my start-up just as the financial crisis was kicking into full gear. It was a scary time, but I didn’t let that stop me from pursuing the opportunity I saw in front of me. Because of the crisis, I was able to negotiate very favorable terms I otherwise wouldn’t have gotten and gain access to relationships I otherwise wouldn’t have had access to. During all the macro turmoil, I focused on growth. The business grew throughout the crisis, and I felt somewhat insulated from the macro dynamics because I focused on the opportunity I saw rather than the broader doom-and-gloom environment. When the crisis ended, we were in prime position to benefit from the ensuing economic uptick.

While not an ideal time for many, the crisis ended up helping my start-up and positioning us for greater success. If you’re an early-stage founder, be aware of the macro environment and how it could develop but focus more on the things you can control and on creating value by solving a problem. If you do, your company is likely to grow despite the macro headwinds.  

As an early founder, I often got backed up on email. After I finished working on the business all day, I couldn’t consistently respond to all my emails. That came back to bite me a few times when I missed some that were important. I either saw them too late or didn’t see them at all.

Effective communication is important, and email is one of the main forms of business communication. As I matured as a founder, I learned the importance of good communication, including managing my email effectively. And I learned a few tricks. These two worked the best:  

• Inbox zero – This is the best but most difficult approach. You clear your email inbox out every day. You deal with every email, even those that don’t require a response. I checked emails once a day in the middle of the afternoon to accomplish this.
• VIP senders – This was effective when I was pressed for time. Most email clients allow you to designate certain contacts as VIPs and segregate emails from them. I called it my VIP inbox. If my day was busy and I couldn’t get through my entire inbox, I made sure to deal with every message in my VIP inbox.

Managing email remains one of my least favorite tasks. I still struggle with it at times. But I realize that it’s difficult to be a good communicator if you don’t have a good email strategy.

I spoke with a founder today who’s going after a consumer market after others have tried and failed. This founder is super excited and passionate and unconcerned about the competition. I eventually asked why he’s so confident he’ll succeed. He smiled and shared something he learned from his early customer interviews.

This founder has ferreted out a key insight. It’s something all the others missed and probably one of the causes of their failure. He’s using this insight as the foundation for his company. It informs what he’s building. He’s confident that if he stays true to it, he’ll be successful.

Key insights are an entrepreneurial competitive advantage. If you’re an early founder, consider asking yourself, What’s my key insight?

When I talk with early founders, I try to understand their business model from a high level. Some are operating marketplaces, while others are selling access to their software. Sometimes I encounter early founders who are trying to execute two business models under one roof.

To be sure, many companies have more than one business model and have enjoyed success. Usually, though, they focused on one core model in the early days. They solved the core problem well and scaled that solution with one business model. As they matured (and had more resources), they added another business model. Think Amazon selling goods to consumers via digital commerce and then, after more than a decade, expanding into selling cloud computing.

If you’re an early founder, avoid spreading yourself too thin. Consider mastering your core business model before expanding into a new one.

As founders build, they will regularly encounter unfamiliar situations. They won’t know how to deal with many of them, and that’s OK: it’s difficult to navigate circumstances you’ve never been exposed to. Founders can acquire the experience they need through trial and error or by leaning on others who already have it. I’m a fan of the latter approach—I found it invaluable during my founder days. Talking with people with experience in what I was trying to do helped me make better decisions.

As my company grew, I had to make more decisions that were complicated and had long-lasting implications. Think contracts and other legalities. The stakes were high. Some of these decisions, once made, couldn’t be undone. To navigate them, I hired professionals whom I thought of as my supporting cast. I was looking for them to fill my knowledge gap so I could make the best decision possible in a high-stakes situation. I wasn’t looking for someone to tell me what to do, but rather for someone who could help me understand the ramifications of all my options. I cycled through a few people and firms, which contributed to some bad decisions in the early days. Over time, I learned to look for service providers who had specific experience helping clients make the types of decisions I was faced with. I found that people who had lived it with other clients were able to easily explain the pros and cons of all the paths I was considering.

It took time, but I ended up building a great supporting cast of service providers. Their knowledge was invaluable; it helped me make the right decisions in critical areas.

If you’re a founder with some high-stakes calls in your future, consider building a supporting cast of service providers who’ve helped others navigate your exact situation. No need to learn the hard way or work with people who are learning on your dime.

Founders looking for capital will likely talk to a lot of investors and hear no repeatedly before they hear yes. It’s a frustrating process. Today I was talking with a founder friend about finding the right investor. We discussed the importance of fit.

Founders have an objective they’re trying to achieve. They need capital, start-up knowledge, and relationships to execute and turn their vision into reality. The investors that can help them achieve this objective are the best fit. Founders are (or should be) evaluating investors for fit, but what they often don’t realize is that this is happening on the other side of the table too.

Investors, like founders, have objectives. They’re looking for opportunities that are the best fit with their objectives. Investors’ objectives vary. They probably include potential financial return, but they may also include other variables. For instance, an investor may want to fund a start-up with a specific approach to solving a problem. Or invest in certain types of solutions (e.g., software) and not others. Or give back to the community as well as make money (do good while doing well). Whatever their objectives are will play into their decision-making process. This means you could be a great founder with a great idea, but the opportunity might not be a fit with a given investor’s objectives.

Good relationships are mutually beneficial. Founders should be mindful of this when evaluating investors (or any partner for that matter). Clearly articulate what your objectives are—but understand the objectives of the other party too. The goal is to find fit: alignment of the objectives of both parties, even if they differ. When there’s a fit, the relationship will be mutually beneficial.

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In the early days of a company, the team is small. One person leaving the company can be a big blow to the team. To an early founder not anticipating the departure, it’s frustrating. Usually, team members opt to leave when things aren’t going well, so the departure combined with challenges in the business can feel like a double whammy and cause founders to question themselves as leaders.

Departures happen at start-ups. The first leaver likely won’t be the last. You want to do all you can to build a great environment and have everyone aligned on the mission, but however hard you try, people will leave. It’s a setback—but also an opportunity to get candid feedback on the business, how leaders are perceived, and the mood of the rest of the team.

I’m a big fan of doing exit interviews when team members choose to depart. Along with thanking them for their service and letting them know they’re always welcome to come back (if they were a good team member), it’s important to ask them for candid feedback. When someone is departing, they’ll usually give more direct feedback because they don’t have anything to lose.

Listening to feedback from someone leaving a hole in your team is hard to do. But it’s super important to look past how you feel about the situation and the extra workload caused by the departure. Listen to understand the why behind the person’s decision to depart, what’s going well, and what can be improved. You may not agree with everything they say, but this opportunity to learn and improve in various areas doesn’t come often. It often leads to valuable golden nuggets.

If you’re an early founder and a team member exits, don’t dwell on the fact that they quit. Instead, focus on what you can learn from the situation to minimize the chances of it happening again and to make your business better.

I spent time talking with a founder friend and with family this weekend about the current labor market for front-line workers. I already knew about businesses having to reduce their hours of operation or capacity due to labor issues. I’ve read about the Great Resignation. But I was still surprised when I listened to firsthand accounts from the customer’s perspective this weekend. It’s anecdotal evidence, but it still got me thinking. I was talking to unrelated parties in different states, yet they were having similar experiences.

I really want to understand this phenomenon better. I’ll be spending some time over the next few weeks learning more from people on the front lines of this issue. My gut tells me that something bigger is happening here that we haven’t fully grasped.  

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