Startup Design: Solution-Product Fit

“Solution-product fit is the moment when a product or solution resonates so deeply with its target market that it becomes indispensable, solving a real problem in a way that feels almost magical. It’s the sweet spot where the solution’s value proposition aligns perfectly with the customer’s needs, creating a sense of?‘this is exactly what I’ve been missing.’” Dan Olsen

EduTech Solutions (not real name) was a Nigerian edtech startup founded in 2018 by a team of passionate educators and technologists, led by Mrs. Olufunmilayo. They aimed to revolutionize Nigeria's education sector by developing an innovative learning management system (LMS) tailored to the country's unique needs.

They correctly identified the need for a comprehensive LMS that would:

- Address the shortage of quality educational resources

- Provide personalized learning experiences

- Enhance teacher-student engagement

- Offer real-time assessment and feedback

They developed a robust and user-friendly LMS that effectively addressed these issues. They have attained market-problem fit and problem-solution fit. All that remained was to attain solution-product fit. However, they struggled to transform their solution into a scalable product, failing to:

- Develop a clear business model and revenue stream

- Establish a strong marketing and sales strategy

- Build a robust and efficient distribution network

- Continuously iterate and improve the product based on user feedback

Despite having a great solution, they failed to gain significant traction in the market. They struggled to convince schools and educators to adopt their LMS, lacking a clear value proposition and effective marketing. The startup's revenue remained minimal, making it difficult to sustain operations and further develop the product. They eventually shut down in 2022, unable to overcome their productization and commercialization challenges.

Solution-Product fit is one of the trickiest of all milestone’s founders need to attain. Once they can transform their solution ideas into a product that people want, it’s easy to attain product-market fit. In the case of this startup, they were unable to.

Inasmuch as they successfully developed a solution that addressed a pressing need in Nigeria's education sector but their inability to effectively transform it into a scalable and sustainable product became the reason for their failure. Their inability to transform the solution into a product that people can use ultimately leads to their demise.

Founders need to understand that having a great solution is only half the battle; successfully transforming it into a product that meets the needs of the target audience and scaling it to achieve sustainability is equally crucial. Startups must prioritize productization, marketing, and revenue generation to ensure their innovative solutions reach their full potential.

Is Your Solution Feasibility?

Solution-Product fit is the precursor to product-market fit. Solution-Product fits happens when the solution is feasible and the founders are able to transform every part of it into a product that people can use.

It is where a solution is transformed into a tech product that meets the customers’ functional, social, and emotional needs. In other words, the product represents the solution.

You have to think deeply about what should be part of the solution and not just put everything. When founders transform every part of their solution into a product, they end up confusing their customers. You need to understand that solution feasibility is the intersection between three elements:

1. Possibility: It can be transformed into a product that works.

2. Practicality: It will be useful, safe and effective

3. Purpose: It will achieve the purpose for which the problem was solved.

A feasible solution is not only technically possible, but also is useful, safe, and meets the needs of the customers.

It is at this stage that you start considering the pricing of your product that is because you have to factor in the cost of producing, supporting, distributing, delivering and maintaining the product you are creating.

You also determine the channel through which you will be distributing and delivering the product.

Other considerations will be along the line of the infrastructure you need to have in place to deliver and serve your customers right. This will help you to determine who you need to partners with help deliver the product faster and serve your customers better.

Co-Create the Product With Your Customer

You must not transform your solution into a product without constant input from your customers. You should not do that in isolation. This is why you need to be agile and use quick prototyping to create products and test them fast.

Agile product development is an iterative approach to transforming solutions into products that prioritize flexibility, customer feedback, and continuous improvement. The customer is at the heart of the transformation. Their feedback is sought at each point of the development process.

Feedback from your customers at every point will help you twerk the product and make improvements. If you develop your product in isolation from the customer, you may end up falling in love with your products and expect that the customers will like it.

You cannot attain solution-product fit working in isolation. You may end up creating features that you think your customers will want but that may distract from the product. Most importantly, you need to make sure that the product does exactly what the solution will do: solve the customers' problem the way the customer will want it solved.

Most times founders just want to get their product out and raise funds so they don’t want to follow the agile process. Other founders may not just know that there is a process to developing a product. Ignorance of course cannot be an excuse. However, using agile methodologies reduces the risk associated with the product, improves product quality and effectiveness, and get products faster to market.

Focus on The Most Important Features Customers Want

Your features are part of the benefits that your customers will get once they rent or own your product. It can be part of your marketing piece or message. You must make sure that your product doesn’t suffer from feature creeps. Features that are unnecessary should not be allowed to be on your product. They may distract from the most important thing.

Remember that your customers don’t buy or rent your product for how it looks or how many features but for what it can help them do. Make sure that everything focuses on that singular thing. Simplicity is focus. You must simplify everything for your customers so they can make better decision, fast.

Even if it’s a website you are building, ensure that you simplify the features. Steve Jobs was good at that. Whenever Apple launch a new product, they put their product on their homepage in a minimalist form. They don’t want to distract from the main product and what it does to people.

If the problem farmers have is how to get people to buy from them but then you develop a website with features that talk more about agriculture than how to connect your farmers to buys, you have distracted anyone who comes to your website from the major solution you are trying to pass out. And you know what? Even if you have been able to onboard farmers, buyers won’t come to your website. Those who will come will be those looking for information about agriculture.

In transforming solutions into products, founders must wear multiple caps: engineer, designer, and marketer. This is a critical point for your startup. This is where you start linking with the outside world. Your product should not make noise but rather sing an orchestra and deliver one message to the customer.

You are the conductor of the orchestra. Your customers are your audience.

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