Comment by cynusx
9 hours ago
I love your enthusiasm so let me share some hard-won learnings with you.
In my view, entrepreneurs spend way too little time on the problem space and rather jump into the solution space very quickly (way too quickly).
The world is full of problems people accept to live with that they just don't consider important enough to solve.
That's the essence of Paul Graham's 'build what people want, not what people need' which is the founder of YC.
People will tell you whatever they think you want to hear. When interviewing them you need to understand how they solved the problem before and the actions they took to solve it. Actions speak much louder than words and you can understand how they think about solving the problem which picks up valuable contextual information as well as potential alternative solutions (competing solutions) they evaluated.
Once you understand the full context and why they do what they do, you can identify the core problem and related "jobs-to-be-done" which really helps in setting product and marketing strategy as well as positioning towards others.
You can do all this with spending very little money to be honest, you may have to put money as an incentive to get enough people to talk to.
And then last, if I were you I would find AI use-cases in mid-size companies (20-200 employees). About 80% of early-stage investor money is flowing into AI right now.
Thank you — that’s genuinely useful advice. You clearly have experience in this space, and I really appreciate the thoughtful insights. I’ll definitely share them with my team.
> People will tell you whatever they think you want to hear. When interviewing them you need to understand how they solved the problem before and the actions they took to solve it. Actions speak much louder than words and you can understand how they think about solving the problem which picks up valuable contextual information as well as potential alternative solutions (competing solutions) they evaluated.
We tried to apply some of that in the limited time we had — for instance, we avoided presenting the idea directly and focused on questions that revealed whether people had faced similar problems before.
> And then last, if I were you I would find AI use-cases in mid-size companies (20-200 employees). About 80% of early-stage investor money is flowing into AI right now. We're not actively seeking investment at the moment, but your point about AI in mid-size companies is very relevant — it's something we’ll keep in mind as we evolve.