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One good way is to live them. Those who have worked for 5-10 years in any given field (not just software) can easily identify the most valuable “hair on fire”
by jschveibinz 5y ago
One good way is to live them. Those who have worked for 5-10 years in any given field (not just software) can easily identify the most valuable “hair on fire” problems to solve.
Otherwise, consider these factors:
1. How many people are affected?
2. How much does the problem cost (in time or money)?
3. How much extra money can be made by solving the problem?
4. How much time can be saved?
5. What is currently blocking the way to dramatic improvements (in anything)?
6. What is causing people real pain, fear, suffering, or dramatic inconvenience in a large enough market?
That’s a good start, anyway. Good luck with the journey.
- chefandy 5y agoIf you run an established service or have a certain kind of userbase? Sure. For a startup with a consumer-focused mobile app? Maybe not. For them, not enough people liking your product to build a reputation is a "hair on fire" problem. In most shopping apps for example, most customers would never even know if the service had 12 hours of downtime per week. An extra step during the checkout sequence, however, and you'll never see them again if there's an alternative. Developers see interfaces and user flows as a place to expose controls so users can operate the software. To users, the interface is the software and bad interface = bad software. So it's super context dependent.