

Ask HN: Do ideas really need to solve a "problem"? - chany2

Granted the answer should be &quot;Yes&quot; and below are B2C examples.<p>Being a devils advocate for a minute.<p>Example 1: Square allows you to purchase a coffee without taking your phone or wallet out. If near a Square register, your Square app connects to it. Tell the cashier &quot;My name is Jack Dorsey, you can find me on your screen.&quot; Grab coffee and go.<p>Opposing view: Before you tell someone this concept, were there A LOT of people complaining about taking out their wallet to buy a coffee?<p>Example 2: Cliche, but speak the simplistic concept of Twitter.<p>Opposing view: Were people complaining about not having a portal to announce their thoughts?<p>Example 3: Henry Ford — &#x27;If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.&#x27;<p>Just want to illustrate a thought I have. Big companies want to innovate, if they don&#x27;t see a &#x27;need&#x27;, they probably cannot extrapolate why. Whereas a &#x27;disillusion&#x27; startup founder tries it, strikes gold.
Want to hear what people think.
======
onion2k
On the Twitter point, the idea of Twitter was to enable groups to text message
each other. It was a very obvious idea because texting groups was awful on
dumbphones and people wanted to do it. What Twitter became was something that
wasn't really foreseen, but is a _textbook_ exercise in pivoting as you see
what your users are doing.

And as such, that's essentially how ideas solve problems. Very rarely does
someone see a problem and come up with a perfect solution first time - an
entrepreneur sees how their solution changes the problem space, and pivots
with their users needs until the solution fits. And _then_ you have this
amazing product that apparently solves something that isn't a "problem" \-
because the product has changed to eliminate the original problem and enable
the user to do something useful.

~~~
chany2
Nice answer on Twitter.

I totally agree, the first attempt probably won't solve the problem. And many
startups actually found a solution first, then try to fit into a problem
paradigm, pivot to solve that 'need'.

However Games might be another example, where was there a Problem people were
complaining that there need to be an Alien vs Human strategy game? No matter
how entertaining, is there study prior to building towards that?

So as a follow-up thought based on your above analysis, should big companies
just keep experimenting in-house on a 'non-problem' until reaching a need? -
also lends a bit to Innovators Dilemma

