For understanding what problems are worth solving, I started to analyze Y Combinator’s startup directory. And these are my research notes in 3 parts: what business can do, in which form, and which levels of completion.
1. To Serve Man
A business can exist simply because someone wants it to. It can solve problems, manage processes, help systems scale, or even serve itself by growing into something bigger.
- At its core, businesses are shaped by the human need for reframing and being organized into (law and growth driven) structures.
- Today, we shape companies not only to have meaning, function, and operation, but also to become extensions of how we think, act, and belong.
(What needs to be addressed? How can we organize chaos into structure? What does society need to function?)
2. Getting Reachability
A business can exist to change visibility, meaningfulness, and value. It can be adding a restaurant to maps or driving leads to an online business.
- Creating direction by clarifying values, goals, and next steps.
- Finding optimal ways to send the message.
- Ensuring messages reach their intended audiences.
- Making sure that communication is cohesive across all points.
- Keeping the cycle of value easy to follow and continue.
(Are we understandable? Is our message clear? Who needs to find us? Are we reaching our audience?)
3. Making Processes Trackable & Analyzable
A business can exist to make the invisible visible. Such as putting GPS on a fleet of trucks and making them show on maps. Digitizing paper forms to have information online. Making calls transformed into text.
- Enabling the creation of data points.
- Bringing clarity across processes and pipelines.
(What’s happening that we can’t see? What should we be monitoring? How can we measure what matters? What invisible processes need to come into the light?)
4. Generating & Sustaining Conversations
A business can exist to manage communication within processes. In the recent past, constant checks, calls, and notes were common. Now, we can annotate directly on things, making feedback easier and more reviewable.
- Creating channels for feedback, alignment, and collaboration.
- Making conversations productive through filtering comments, metrics, and dialogue.
(What conversations are we missing? How do teams stay aligned? How can we make communication more productive?)
5. Enriching & Transforming Data
A business can exist to move information across formats and contexts.
- Transforming input into usable formats.
- Enriching data to make it deeper. Translating context into the environment where it’s needed.
(What context is missing from our data? What do these data mean? How can we make the information more detailed?)
6. Detection & Validation
A business can exist to check and verify something.
- Tracking the signals around and finding the gaps.
- Comparing results to baselines or expectations.
- Checking processes and also detecting flaws, misuse, or bottlenecks.
(Is this working correctly? Which things are wrong here? Are we meeting our standards?)
7. Generating Actionable Insights
A business can exist to ask “Can this be better?” and try to find the answer to it.
- Extracting relevant data from inputs.
- Turning data into clean directional insights.
(How can we do this better? How can we improve performance? What does our data tell us about what to do next?)
8. Auto-Applying Feedback & Learnings
A business can automate tasks and improve processes with minimal manual effort. For example, a large bank wanted to identify recurring issues throughout the year. They implemented speech-to-text technology to analyze customer calls. Soon, they realized there is a service that analyzes calls in real time, which allows them to map daily pain points instead of waiting for monthly reports. These insights, along with suggested solutions, can then be automatically sent to the relevant teams.
- Creating self-working loops that handle tasks.
- Building loops that evolve automatically as they operate.
(Can we do this without checking? What things can we automate? What manual processes can become self-managing?)
9. Increasing Effectiveness
A business may be chosen for its ability to meet specific criteria.
- Delivering faster, cheaper, easier, or according to desired criteria.
- Simplifying complex workflows.
(How can we do this better? What criteria do users care about? Where can we eliminate friction or reduce costs?)
10. Making the Cycle Sustainable
A business can sustain itself by building continuous clarity and resilience. Tribute to previous bank example, let’s imagine another service is listening to problems and instead of only reporting it, it redirects to related solution to the customer. Making a cycle of feedback and answer development continuous.
- Maintaining things as repeatable.
- Ensuring operations are clear, accessible, and adaptable.
- Allowing continual self-refinement and growth.
(How do we maintain this long term? What makes our processes resilient? How can we build systems that improve over time?)
Form of the Business
1. Extension
Adapting to or enhancing an existing cycle or behavior.
(Grammarly, Honey, Officely, Loom, Extensions API integrations, workflow add-ons)
2. Solution Product
Providing a targeted solution to a known problem.
(Airbnb, Dropbox, Algolia, Gitlab, Point solutions, SaaS, Niche tools)
3. Solution Center
Serving as a hub or platform that others can build upon or rely on.
(Heroku, AWS, Shopify, Zapier, Platforms, Marketplaces, Ecosystems)
Levels of Needed Completion
1. Fulfilling
Given requests, needs, or desires are done at a level of fulfillment.
2. Empowering
Being able to act on what is cared about.
3. Translating
Turning a given situation into a sense of progression or achievement.
Leave a Reply