Entrepreneurship is a search problem.
I think some of you, especially the ones with a technical background, are familiar with search problems. Indexes, trees, LogN, all that stuff.
And entrepreneurship is very related to it.
I see entrepreneurship as has having three dimensions (clients, problem, solution), and entrepreneurs need to search a combination of the three that offers product market fit. Meaning that we need to search for the clients that are willing to pay us enough, a problem that is worth solving and a solution that is good enough and crafted for that specific problem. These three variables are deeply intertwined, and us, as entrepreneurs, have to search step by step and optimize them.
The clients
It is often advised to start with the clients, as they are the ones ultimately paying the bills. They know what problems they have and what solutions they are willing to pay for.
As the entrepreneur, you can start you searching algorithm from here: define the core personas of the ideal clients (even before you get any ideas about the problems or solutions), and ask them what they need.
This way, they will help you define your problems (so you can start exploring the problem dimension) and even start to define some solutions.
The success you have with approaching clients first is determined by the strength of your network: think about work ex-colleagues, former bosses, people of contact in prior businesses, or even past clients if it's not your first rodeo.
The problem
You can start with the problem if you are building something to scratch your own itch, that's a viable solution too. But once you define that problem, you have to search for the clients, because you never know if the problem you are experiencing is widespread enough and if the other people experiencing it are as motivated as you to pay for it.
But if you start with it, you are dogfood-ing your product and thus it's easier to iterate and come up with a solution. And also, it's easier to find the clients because you already have a client persona you can start with: you.
The solution
Some indie hackers prefer to start from the solution directly and search the other variables afterwards.
The ones that do that are often called "copycats" but in the end, they are entering some market that is already validated, there is proven demand, there are solutions out there that have some success and can be replicated to some degree.
The only issue here is that the people doing it this way, they engage in a race to the bottom and they start swimming in a red ocean.
But they are searching for the clients and the problem variables as well, and it's much easier to do that when there are people out there that already did that before you.
I have written about this subject in today's edition of The Tech Bubble, my newsletter where I post weekly some startup wisdom such as this topic, some indie business examples for inspiration and document my journey as an indie hacker myself.
https://jointhetechbubble.substack.com/p/the-tech-bubble-9-entrepreneurship
