How to identify buyers pain points at a strategic level.

As all of us know, disruption happens when the buyers’ way of living or working changes. A new requirement of a solution arises with a new problem or a gap in the market. This gap normally leads to startups coming up with a solution that solves a buyer’s problem at scale.

How do we go about finding out what the buyers’ problems are? How do we go about identifying what sort of new problems might arise? Answers to these two questions will help us come up with a solution that is contextual to the larger buyer persona we will target.

There are minor gaps in the market such as a chair that does not break that fast, a plugin in LinkedIn and a machine that consumes lesser electricity. Yes, these are definitely pain points that the market faces. However, these are not necessarily the technologies that ends up being disruptive. These are not the solutions that will lead to a scalable solution and will bring out a unicorn out of the startup.

How to identify a pain point that gives a disruptive change to the buyers when solved. We can look at the following triggers that the market is displaying right now. They are

• A business situation

The latest pandemic has put all of us into immense trouble. However, this has also given us a lot of open opportunities or problems that are to be solved. We can take the lead and come up with product ideas that can be used in this kind of a business situation.

• Need of technology to power businesses

As the world is getting dependant on technology to run business, new use cases of technology to solve business problems can evolve. Technology has allowed to think beyond our boundaries and treat the entire world as a background with the backup of a simple technology. We can come up with product ideas that can be launched using strong technologies.

• Natural calamities

We have lots of natural calamities that strike us. It could be a cyclone, could be a rain and flood situation that we have in India in many places to name a couple. We could think of problems that people are facing. We can come up with product ideas that can be launched using some simple ideas.

• Governmental regulations

There could be a lot of government regulations such as e-invoicing, online filing of taxes and a few other healthcare schemes that would be launched from time to time. We could think of problems that people are facing because of that. Any solution that can be got out would be most sought after because this will become a must have for people to adapt to.

• Disruptive technologies

There are many technologies that disrupt the market these days. We can choose one of the technologies where we have capabilities in and can try solving some problems we know that exist in the market.

• Secondary research

There are many reports that come out in the market that talks about lots of open opportunities in the market. These would be conducted by multiple research firms whose objectives will be to find out what is happening in the market. We could think of problems from that research where we have capabilities to solve. We can then begin coming up with solutions to target the market.

Conclusion

Opportunities are available in multiple places. As entrepreneurs, we have to proactively and reactively look at the problems that the market faces. We can then leverage our capabilities to solve these problems at scale. We will then be able to either begin a new venture or add more capabilities in our existing venture. So, keep looking out for multiple problems that the market faces and constantly evaluate your capability to solve those.