I am in two minds about this. From the top I think identifying a pain, a frustration in the consumer, and then articulating it in a way that feels honest and cathartic is central to the selling process of anything, not just startups or founders with novel products.
Where I differ however, is to encapsulate the entire innovation process down to a causal chain of pain identification. There exist several instances of accidental discoveries, and use coming after innovation (3M's Post It notes for eg.), or even technology evolving to solve a problem that didn't exist, but simply by the tech existing created some delta that gave an unlock.
Of course, in retrospect you can say that people in the late 90s were DYING to have a better way to search the internet and they were in so much pain because of (a lack of) it. But it's also true that for the vast majority, the use case of search did not exist till Google offered it.
My common ground with this post is that a substantial *change of state* is imperative for a product to become successful in terms of finding buyers. If the pursuit of finding the pain itself is missing, good luck finding a buyer. But the implied causality of pain to innovation gets debunked a lot throughout history.
AirBnB itself wasn't born for certainty as you suggest. The genesis of the product was always in low cost. Infact the team was down to their last dollar. They even made cereal (https://techcrunch.com/2008/10/09/whats-for-breakfast-at-your-house-obama-os-or-capn-mccains/) to sustain them for some time before they cracked that good quality photos is what's keeping people from booking. Then whatever you said holds true. Can I then argue that the real pain behind this innovation was death? (of the company) like it was for Archimedes when he sunk into the bath-tub for one last time before his impending death sentence? The story tells us he wasn't even trying to solve the problem anymore.
Innovation comes in many ways and seeks to solve what it deems to be a problem. Often it is only the chaotic roll of several dies at once that casts the final outcome. But the dice of pain must roll in your favour.
This is such a sharp comment, thank you for leaving it. 🙏
I agree, not every breakthrough can be traced back to a single, clearly articulated pain point. Post-its, penicillin, even the story of Airbnb- so many innovations look like accidents at the time. Sometimes the “pain” only crystallises in hindsight, once the solution exists.
Where I think we overlap is in your phrase: substantial change of state. That’s exactly it. Whether you call it killing pain, or unlocking possibility, what makes a product indispensable is the shift it creates in a user’s life. Before/after. Unbearable → bearable.
And you’re right, not all founders start by chasing pain. Some stumble on it. Some only discover it when survival forces them to sharpen the story. But in the trenches, when you’re pitching, selling, trying to convince someone to switch, pain is the sharpest, fastest language we have.
So maybe the better framing is: innovation doesn’t always begin with pain. But adoption almost always requires it?
Certainly! Couldn't agree more. If the change of state is substantial, it can make living without it incredibly hard. That becomes the reason to buy. My distinct realisation for this came when one day I noticed that my old iPad, that my mother was now using, still had my YouTube creds logged in.
Concerned about exposing her to my questionable video history, I logged out of my account and logged her in. Few days later she called in complaining. The ads had started playing again because no more YT Premium. She hated it so much she cajoled me into signing in again. This was 2023.
In 2019 when one kind YT exec told me, in response to my inquiry on how Premium was doing, that while Premium had low uptake, the retention was crazy, I dismissed it as corporate mumbo-jumbo and stuck to my confirmation that it wasn't doing well. Cut to 2023, I made a sharp U on that one.
So I agree, for 10 years my mother and I lived with the ads. Never thinking they were a problem. But the moment we were rid of them, going back became impossible.
All purchases are indeed to avoid pain, even if some of them seem like gaining pleasure.
Two concerns:
1) If you position yourself against a pain, you'd better be a new entrant. Calendly could do that. Google Appointment Scheduler could not. Because they solved the same core problem. Google had to say "Appointment scheduling with Google Calendar" and kind of repeated Calendly's positioning "Forget the back and forth and let people instantly book time on your calendar."
Same with Uber and Ola. Both were solving a similar core problem. At some point, usually when there are multiple players solving the same problem (and that is often the case), you cannot just sell the pain anymore. The customer will ask, how do you do it better? And then you are forced to focus on the solution, moving away from the pain. The solution is the opportunity where you show how deeply you are invested in the problem and not just tinkering. It DOES matter if the solution came after arduous, deep research over ten years, when you tell your story. That may not be a differentiator, but it is your unique story. Perhaps the "why" lies in it. People buy that story.
2) Secondly, what if the pain does not yet exist? Many times, you manufacture pains. Ten-minute delivery was not a pain until a smart duo decided to manufacture it in the minds of busy young city dwellers. Today it has become one (successfully; kudos to Zepto). Now Licious’s four-hour delivery feels late. No one even remembers how transformational Amazon’s next-day delivery once was.
When you manufacture a pain, most customers treat it as a luxury/good to have at first, until a new habit is built through repetition. In that sense, the question "What pain dies the second your product shows up?" may not apply, because there was no pain in the first place. Why then would people try you? Maybe you give them something for free or at a discounted rate, and some early adopters give it a shot. As they see value (not necessarily as a painkiller yet), they spread the word. If you have cash to burn, someday you end up manufacturing a new pain!
I enjoyed reading the article every bit. Each example and case study is crystal clear. However, wanted to understand, how does this change across industries. In manufacturing and service, I understand there is scope to define a 'why', 'what' and 'how'. But say in F&B,
1. What problem could your product possibly solve?
2. Even if you have a good enough storytelling, how well will it resonate with the consumers leading to retention?
I am in two minds about this. From the top I think identifying a pain, a frustration in the consumer, and then articulating it in a way that feels honest and cathartic is central to the selling process of anything, not just startups or founders with novel products.
Where I differ however, is to encapsulate the entire innovation process down to a causal chain of pain identification. There exist several instances of accidental discoveries, and use coming after innovation (3M's Post It notes for eg.), or even technology evolving to solve a problem that didn't exist, but simply by the tech existing created some delta that gave an unlock.
Of course, in retrospect you can say that people in the late 90s were DYING to have a better way to search the internet and they were in so much pain because of (a lack of) it. But it's also true that for the vast majority, the use case of search did not exist till Google offered it.
My common ground with this post is that a substantial *change of state* is imperative for a product to become successful in terms of finding buyers. If the pursuit of finding the pain itself is missing, good luck finding a buyer. But the implied causality of pain to innovation gets debunked a lot throughout history.
AirBnB itself wasn't born for certainty as you suggest. The genesis of the product was always in low cost. Infact the team was down to their last dollar. They even made cereal (https://techcrunch.com/2008/10/09/whats-for-breakfast-at-your-house-obama-os-or-capn-mccains/) to sustain them for some time before they cracked that good quality photos is what's keeping people from booking. Then whatever you said holds true. Can I then argue that the real pain behind this innovation was death? (of the company) like it was for Archimedes when he sunk into the bath-tub for one last time before his impending death sentence? The story tells us he wasn't even trying to solve the problem anymore.
Innovation comes in many ways and seeks to solve what it deems to be a problem. Often it is only the chaotic roll of several dies at once that casts the final outcome. But the dice of pain must roll in your favour.
This is such a sharp comment, thank you for leaving it. 🙏
I agree, not every breakthrough can be traced back to a single, clearly articulated pain point. Post-its, penicillin, even the story of Airbnb- so many innovations look like accidents at the time. Sometimes the “pain” only crystallises in hindsight, once the solution exists.
Where I think we overlap is in your phrase: substantial change of state. That’s exactly it. Whether you call it killing pain, or unlocking possibility, what makes a product indispensable is the shift it creates in a user’s life. Before/after. Unbearable → bearable.
And you’re right, not all founders start by chasing pain. Some stumble on it. Some only discover it when survival forces them to sharpen the story. But in the trenches, when you’re pitching, selling, trying to convince someone to switch, pain is the sharpest, fastest language we have.
So maybe the better framing is: innovation doesn’t always begin with pain. But adoption almost always requires it?
Certainly! Couldn't agree more. If the change of state is substantial, it can make living without it incredibly hard. That becomes the reason to buy. My distinct realisation for this came when one day I noticed that my old iPad, that my mother was now using, still had my YouTube creds logged in.
Concerned about exposing her to my questionable video history, I logged out of my account and logged her in. Few days later she called in complaining. The ads had started playing again because no more YT Premium. She hated it so much she cajoled me into signing in again. This was 2023.
In 2019 when one kind YT exec told me, in response to my inquiry on how Premium was doing, that while Premium had low uptake, the retention was crazy, I dismissed it as corporate mumbo-jumbo and stuck to my confirmation that it wasn't doing well. Cut to 2023, I made a sharp U on that one.
So I agree, for 10 years my mother and I lived with the ads. Never thinking they were a problem. But the moment we were rid of them, going back became impossible.
Great article!
All purchases are indeed to avoid pain, even if some of them seem like gaining pleasure.
Two concerns:
1) If you position yourself against a pain, you'd better be a new entrant. Calendly could do that. Google Appointment Scheduler could not. Because they solved the same core problem. Google had to say "Appointment scheduling with Google Calendar" and kind of repeated Calendly's positioning "Forget the back and forth and let people instantly book time on your calendar."
Same with Uber and Ola. Both were solving a similar core problem. At some point, usually when there are multiple players solving the same problem (and that is often the case), you cannot just sell the pain anymore. The customer will ask, how do you do it better? And then you are forced to focus on the solution, moving away from the pain. The solution is the opportunity where you show how deeply you are invested in the problem and not just tinkering. It DOES matter if the solution came after arduous, deep research over ten years, when you tell your story. That may not be a differentiator, but it is your unique story. Perhaps the "why" lies in it. People buy that story.
2) Secondly, what if the pain does not yet exist? Many times, you manufacture pains. Ten-minute delivery was not a pain until a smart duo decided to manufacture it in the minds of busy young city dwellers. Today it has become one (successfully; kudos to Zepto). Now Licious’s four-hour delivery feels late. No one even remembers how transformational Amazon’s next-day delivery once was.
When you manufacture a pain, most customers treat it as a luxury/good to have at first, until a new habit is built through repetition. In that sense, the question "What pain dies the second your product shows up?" may not apply, because there was no pain in the first place. Why then would people try you? Maybe you give them something for free or at a discounted rate, and some early adopters give it a shot. As they see value (not necessarily as a painkiller yet), they spread the word. If you have cash to burn, someday you end up manufacturing a new pain!
I enjoyed reading the article every bit. Each example and case study is crystal clear. However, wanted to understand, how does this change across industries. In manufacturing and service, I understand there is scope to define a 'why', 'what' and 'how'. But say in F&B,
1. What problem could your product possibly solve?
2. Even if you have a good enough storytelling, how well will it resonate with the consumers leading to retention?
Would love to get your perspective on this.