The fools of Alexander is the derogatory name used by scholars to describe anyone who has wasted time searching for buried treasure in Alexandria, Egypt.
It is said that in Alexandria, everybody has a theory about Alexander the Great and the location of his coffin of “hammered gold”. In most parts of the world, people buy lottery tickets. In Alexandria, they buy shovels.*
So why Alexander the Great? Well, a bit of history always makes a good opening for a blog post and most likely, everyone with the name Alexander will click to read this. However, this blog post is about my thing with the problem.
Confused? Then read on…
If you are in the startup business CEOing as a founder or involved in any other form of business interaction providing a service or product, you will have come across the thing with the problem.
The “What problem are you trying to solve?” thing I mean.
This is probably the most asked question in the startup environment, and you’ll find it in the top-left corner of any lean canvas and business case template. Even Einstein (supposedly) said, “If I were given one hour to save the planet, I would spend 59 minutes defining the problem and one minute resolving it”.
So, who am I to argue with a dead genius?
By the way, that’s Einstein at the age of 14 in the picture. Relevant? No, but cute. Let’s continue.
I have a problem with the problem because people are coming up with problems to start businesses a bit like the fools of Alexander, wasting time finding the “buried golden problem” instead of asking what I believe is the far more critical question…
“What value is your product/service creating?”
Yes, you could argue, of course, if you are creating value, you are solving someone’s problem, but there is a slight difference between a problem (negative) and value-add (positive …the “add” sort of gives it away doesn’t it?)
Tesla, Apple, Uber and Airbnb are all in the “problem-solver premier league” when it comes to providing best-selling solutions for problems we all have. Or have we?
Quick question. When you recently upgraded to your new iPhone XYZ you clearly had a problem with the previous model? Or was it that the clever people at Apple created even more value for the new model by picking several components from the elements of the value pyramid down below?
You might have also noticed that over the last few years, it wasn’t too easy for Apple to add more value to the next model simply because they exhausted their value-creation fountain. The only value components left for Apple to keep on selling the next generations of iPhones are not feature-driven but (human) needs-driven.
Inward or outward-focused values such as affiliation/belonging, reward, aesthetics, or badge value, just to name a few, and you can see how they are now focusing on wellness values.
Guess what; I bet you didn’t know you had a problem with falling flat on your face and thought – “I wish my phone would call me an ambulance.” But Apple created value you didn’t know existed.
When Steve Jobs came up with the iPod in 2001 (actually, he had the idea to disrupt the MP3 player market, but it was Tony Fadell who came up with the actual device), he disrupted the market because of several value drivers that made us all run to the shops like the lemmings and get our hands on the first device that offered
time-savings: transferring thousands of songs with firewire in seconds (ok minutes)
simplification and reduced effort: click-wheel instead of plus/minus buttons made it easier to scroll through thousands of songs
sensory appeal and design/aesthetics – the feel and touch of the iPod and beautifully simple UI
and quality: they just worked (and still do)
The value pyramid above is the hard work of the good people at BCG, and I refer to this a lot. It is also not a coincidence that this leans on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs -“human actions arise from an innate desire to fulfil needs”. I call this the water and wifi value need:-)
When Musk put the Tesla Roadster on the streets in 2008, it wasn’t that we didn’t have electric cars to take us from A to B. No, they were just pot-ugly with a top speed of a giant Galapagos tortoise that couldn’t get you from your front door to the shopping mall before you had to recharge.
You can argue Elon solved all these problems of range and speed, but so did GM, Toyota and others in the current EV market. What Tesla is really good at is the creation of value, and by the way, Tesla outsold Mercedes-Benz in the US in September 2021 for the first time. Boom.
Why? Value! The first one to make an electric vehicle look attractive, fast, self-driving and with over-the-air software updates that basically give you a new car every time you have a wifi connection.
Do you remember the nights you couldn’t sleep because you knew you had a problem outperforming a Lamborghini Aventador with your 5-seater family sedan? Well, now you can. Problem solved, oh no wait, maybe it makes you feel just a bit cooler (badge value :-)) because you can?
Aaaanyway, coming to the end.
I am not saying throw away all your thinking about the problems you want to solve. I just want to encourage you to take a mental image of the value pyramid. Have a conversation about the value you will create for your customers when you write your business plan or develop your new product. That’s all 🙂
Oh, and the same approach works for any activity. Time with the family or friends, attending meetings, helping people, yourself (!) think about what value you create.
Have a valuable week!