“So, how did you get that idea?” the aspiring entrepreneur asks the billionaire

Where does product vision come from?

A product vision describes a problem, owned by enough people, that it is worth solving.

Finding a product vision is, then, about finding a worthy problem.

My Quest for a Worthy Problem

As a PhD student at Oxford University, I was prone to solving problems, any problem. Ticking boxes felt like an achievement, like progress. Eventually, I learnt that to contribute to science I would need to solve one problem. One worthy problem.

I asked my PhD supervisor, Mike, to give me my one worthy problem. He told me PhD’s were all about the search for the one worthy problem. This search was my quest, my mission, my purpose.

Mike gave me a broad title to frame my search, a broad vision to aspire to, a friendly research lab, and sent me on my way.

For three years I apprenticed and learnt my problem domain, robotics. With time I kept narrowing the focus of my problem to one that still mattered and I could solve.

Only at the very end of my thesis, as I was about to end with no results, did I finally perceive a problem that made a difference, and I could solve

An image analysis method for sure detection and diagnosis of Cancer in mammographs

Mike Brady, Oxford University

How does DNA replicate and how is hereditary information coded on it?

Crick and Watson, Cambridge University, Nobel Prize 1963

Pick Your Problem Domain

A quest for a worthy problem is domain specific. You have to commit to a problem space that is non-generic, a narrow specialization.

Many turn away from specializing in such a narrow domain. Preferring a wider, more generic domain, where clients are more numerous and possibilities more diverse.

Without a quest into a problem space, however, there is no chance of finding a worthy problem. You will not achieve a product vision of any value.

The problem domain is about 3 things:

Users & clients
Markets: the value chain, the competition
Trends & Technology

Tips for choosing your problem space:

Who are you, and what makes you different?
Where can you make a difference?
What trends and breakthroughs are making new problem spaces

First Problem Title – the Problem Framework

Choose a broad problem title to frame your opportunity.

Best to choose a broad, ambitious goal first. A statement of intent

A times ten improvement of an existing problem is a good standard. 10x thinking is favored at Google for framing problems

A narrow, timid, un-ambitious problem framework is unlikely to contain a worthy problem. It will constrain creativity, and will not inspire. Be brave, go ahead, “cure cancer”

Purpose & Belief

At the start, there is no testing, no validation, no process, no management, no derisking, no reassurance.

You have to commit to this fully. Purpose and belief is your only recourse.

If you are not nervous, not un-comfortable, you are doing something wrong. Go back and multiply by 10 the ambition of your problem framework

The searching for a potent product vision is profoundly uncomfortable. Many turn away here.

I am a recovering executive. I like order and structure, certainty and process. Being aspirational and brave in my problem statements is still difficult for me. Hence, I fail a lot.

Jewelry that represents the world of good taste, timeless design, purest materials, and finest craftsmanship

Tiffany’s

Sportswear that brings inspiration and innovation to every athlete in the world

Nike

Enabling People to Live on Other Planets

Elon Musk, SpaceX

To enable sustainable transport through making every-day electric cars as soon as possible

Elon Musk, Tesla Motors

Tools to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.

Google

Computer-animated feature films with memorable characters and heartwarming stories that appeal to audiences of all ages

Pixar

To give people the power to share and make the world more open and connected

Facebook

To give everyone the power to create and share ideas and information instantly, without barriers

Twitter

Well designed home furnishings at prices so low that as many people as possible will be able to afford them

Ikea

To make a contribution to the world by making tools for the mind that advance humankind.

Steve Jobs, Apple

The Quest Process

The first problem title, the initial product vision, will be broad, aspirational and full of potential. It is the framework for the search for a valuable problem.

Finding a potent product vision is about progressively making choices. Progressively narrowing down, focusing till you find the one worthy problem.

focus, focus, focus

As you quest forward, your framework will narrow. Your quest will converge within the framework.

Questing for a worthy problem is like panning and sluicing gold paydirt, looking for nuggets. Focus is the narrowing down to the promising areas.

Focus, the ability to disregard areas, to so no to problems is a joy when it arrives.
It arrives in moments of intuition, in fits and starts.

Focus, unfortunately, is fickle and often comes wrapped in doubt. By narrowing down, are you stepping past a worthy problem?

You can never have enough focus. The more limited your means, your time, your assets, the more you need a hard focus

No amount of work, magnitude, can make up for a lack of direction. Without focus and direction, you will not vector forward. Simple Math.

Research Mantra

If you are a large conglomerate, you are HP Innovation Labs, then you can widen your focus, and likely find a handful of worthy problems. If not, you must focus.

learn-dream-build

Best creative work involves talking to people, and making stuff. There are three types of learning;

enactive – action based
iconic – image based
symbolic – language based

The best creative work occurs by combining working with your hands, drawing and talking to people.

At this stage, dreaming is the best form of prototyping

Imagination

Imagination is a difficult exercise. Uninformed imagination leads to re-inventing the wheel, chaotic digging exploratory holes all over the framework field, and gimmicks that have no value.

Yet imagination is key to the best problem category “new to the world”. Where the problem is not derivative. A true sideways jump, going outside the box. Seeing things no else sees.

Critical Mass of Focused Know-How

Know-how is bed-rock though. Accumulate enough focused know-how and perception of possibilities multiplies a thousand fold. Past a critical mass of focused know how, and creative output explodes.

Accumulating focused know-how is frustrating though. How much is enough? Is this enough? When does it finish? The narrower your focus, the quicker you will go up the learning curve. So focus down.

The most reliable form of innovation is extending ideas and patterns from an unrelated domain. This form of innovation requires high know-how levels, you must master several domains before you can visualize parallels.

Recipe

So first, critical mass of domain specific know-how, then look to migrate patterns from un-related domains onto your problem domain. Finally, attempt whimsy and imagination; can you reframe the problem? Forget all assumptions about your problem, what comes to mind?

The Perpetual Pivot: Method in the Chaos

During a problem quest, the entrepreneur will appear to be cascading through perpetual pivots. He will look at succession of user segments, points of the value chain, trends and technologies.

The quest is chaotic and uncomfortable. Every area and task will require learning anew. Nothing will be a comfort zone.

Yet there is order and a pattern in the chaos. Focus and direction.

The quest is a constrained, disciplined exercise, with boundaries. The multitude of pivots, in user segments, differentiation and technology are framed tightly within boundaries.

An effective entrepreneur has discipline. He stays within his problem framework; sticks to his chosen problem domain, his problem title.

Deadlines are Your Friend

Creativity needs constraints, and a deadline is the best of constraints. A pressing deadline gives you resolve and energy to decide, to make choices.

At this stage, you will have little data, no extensive metrics to gather, no KPIs, no excel sheets. Most choices will be based on incomplete data, on intuition.

Pressing deadlines give you the energy to keep making choices, keep deciding on the way forward. Keep Moving!

Actionable Product Vision

The quest for the one worthy problem finishes when you hand the product brief to a product manager.

The product manager will require

customer segment for which the product is intended
customer problem which the product will address
utility prototype demonstrating the utility to serve the customer’s needs
technology prototype demonstrating the technology to be used

Introduce the product manager to your fieldwork, the pool of test candidates on which you have been testing your product vision

As a guarantee for your work, explain the user value tests you have conducted. Some measure for User satisfaction, NPS (net promoter score) that proves a defensible differentiation in the market.

Once the product vision reaches this point, it has to have sufficient focus and potency that it requires no more pivots.

Senior product managers will run opportunity assessment evaluations of their own, to establish that the product vision is viable and has potency. They will then proceed with a product discovery process which will detail the user segment and prototypes, and mature them to targeted production quality products.

Senior product managers, with a good UX team, are capable of limited scope product pivots, and minor market pivots. But the product founder should not count on these, and should consider the product vision search complete.

Product Vision Lifecycle

The internet, with its almost perfect information flow, is making a product’s differentiation depreciate quickly. Your competitors can copy you quick.

In fashion, it takes only one season for a leading style to go out of fashion, or be copied by other fashion houses.

Product differentiation lessens through both competition and commoditization of the market

So, experienced product managers will demand an appreciable differentiation in the product vision.

The Best Product Team in the World

Differential utility buys the user goodwill essential for a product to engage well with a user. If the utility you offer is available, equally, one click away, you have become a commodity. The user will extend a very limited amount of goodwill during the interaction.

UX design teams sometimes don’t understand this.

Usability, lean startup iterations, product identity & narrative, branding, aesthetics, interaction design, and gamification are for naught if the product vision does not provide differentiation

The best UX design work in the world does not make up for poor differentiation.

Even with lean startup iterations around the product vision, the market’s maxima positioning is taken by a competitor. The market horizon for the product has become fallow.

It is time to pivot the vision, pivot the product, pivot the business.

Signs of End-of-Life

As differentiation depreciates, the product team will start to struggle with important metrics, KPIs. Starting with virality, then loyalty, then basic engagement.

The efficiency with which a product team achieves its outcomes degrades progressively, as product vision depreciates.

The life-cycle of a product ends either as a monopoly, or as a commodity, like Aspirin. You may achieve basic User engagement through brilliant product, sales and marketing team. But profit margins will be zero.

Either conjure up a new potent product vision, or change the business to provide services to other product companies.