Podcast episode. Listen on Substack.
Why great ventures don’t begin with ideas. They begin with discovery.
In this episode:
- How problem-first beats idea-first
- What problem discovery looks like in practice
- Choosing a problem worth building for
Most ventures don't fail because the idea was bad.
They fail because teams never proved they were solving something real.
In this episode, I break down what strong innovators do differently by starting with how they approach problem discovery.
We'll cover:
- Why most interviews miss the mark
- How to separate signal from noise
- Three frameworks that help you make sense of what you hear
- The difference between real problems, latent needs, and luxury desires
This is the work that keeps you from wasting time, budget, and team buy-in.
If you know someone working on a new venture—send it their way. Might save them a few months of building the wrong thing.
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Don't create unicorns,Let's breed blue whales.🐋
(Podcast episode, ~14:16 audio.)
Related reading: Innovation Fails Because Teams (Still) Skip This One Crucial Step
Prefer reading? The related article: Innovation Fails Because Teams (Still) Skip This One Crucial Step.
Working on this inside a large organization? Book a discovery call.