Tea, Earl Grey, Hot: The 8 Universal Principles of Customer Problems in B2B SaaS
From Simple Commands to Transformative Solutions Customers Truly Need
💡 This is part #3 in a series of articles that introduces a better way to create B2B SaaS products, starting from the first principles. To get the most out of the series, read the intro article #1 and part #2 first, and then subscribe to keep following along!
Imagine a world where your B2B SaaS product isn’t just another feature-bloated platform, but a game-changing solution that customers can’t live without. The key? Understanding the true essence of customer problems.
In my previous article, I posed a provocative question, without answering it:
What is a “customer problem”, to which a software product is a “solution” – in principle?
The answer to this question is the cornerstone of creating B2B software products that don’t just compete – they dominate markets. Yet, this question seems to elude the whole software industry.
I argued that a customer problem must not be defined in terms of any solution, so it cannot be:
The pain points in the solution that customers complain about
The lack of a solution (that’s circular logic)
The features that customers request (they are solutions)
Misunderstanding customer problems turns promising product companies into mere feature factories. Their backlogs overflow with feature ideas, requests, and complaints from customers, while the dream of an elegant, scalable, market-winning product slips further away.
There is a way out. In the next few minutes, you will gain insights that begin to revolutionise your approach to B2B SaaS development.
But creating B2B and enterprise software is like building a skyscraper. Before we can reach for the clouds, we must lay a rock-solid foundation of understanding. That’s why we start with something seemingly simple: a cup of tea. By stripping away layers of complexity, we will uncover the fundamental principles that govern all customer problems – from the everyday problems to complex business operations. This approach will equip us with the understanding necessary to tackle even the most intricate B2B software challenges.
Ready to see customer needs in a new light? Let’s dive in.
What is the best solution for boiling water?
Let’s explore five existing alternatives for boiling water:
Kettle
Microwave oven
Electric stove
Trangia stove (a portable stove that uses alcohol as fuel)
Campfire
Which of these solutions is the best for boiling water to make tea?
Let’s look at three scenarios to find out the answer.
A) Alice’s evening ritual: Winding down at home
Imagine Alice at home, exhausted after a long day, and getting ready to go to bed soon. To relax, she enjoys having a cup of tea. Which solution is the best for her?
Going outdoors at night to make a campfire doesn’t make any sense. Digging out her Trangia from the closet and starting to mess around with its fuel is not a good idea either. The electric stove in her kitchen is more practical, but quite slow at heating water. A microwave oven is faster but somewhat inconvenient: what is the right time to heat the water so it gets boiling hot, but won’t boil over? And the microwave heats water unevenly: water at the top boils before water at the bottom. On the other hand, she could pour the right amount of cold water directly into the tea cup, and heat the water there.
Her electric kettle seems like the best solution: it is ready for use on her kitchen top, filling it and turning it on is easy, it heats the water up quickly, convection ensures the water gets heated evenly, it stops automatically when the water boils, she is unlikely to burn herself, and it’s the most energy efficient method.
B) Bob’s wilderness challenge: Hydration on the hike
How about Bob, who is trekking through untamed wilderness? A cup of tea helps him keep warm and safely hydrated, as boiling the water makes it sterile. The best solution for him?
Anything electric is out of the question. He is not going to carry a powerful battery with him. A campfire in the forest requires effort: finding dry wood, locating a suitable place, lighting up the fire, and devising a way to hold a metal pot over the fire. A Trangia stove is the best solution for him: a light-weight device designed for backpacking, relatively easy to use in primitive conditions.
C) Carol’s family adventure: Forest fun with the kids
How about Carol, who is on an outing with her children in a forest on a Sunday afternoon?
Providing new experiences for the children is the goal of the trip. Unlike for Bob, the convenience of a Trangia isn’t important. But all the steps involved in making a campfire and boiling the water on it would be both an exciting and educational adventure for the kids. Once they have the fire, maybe they will grill a few sausages, too.
The 8 universal principles of all customer problems
This simple tea-making example unlocks the nature of customer problems. Let’s dissect what the situations reveal about customer problems, solutions, and the relationship between them.
Principle 1: Customer problem is a specific situation of a particular customer
“Boiling water for tea” is at the core of these situations. In all three, it is what the people are trying to get done by using different solutions.
But what a customer is trying to get done is not enough to describe a customer problem. Since Alice, Bob and Carol benefit from different solutions, the nature of their problem is necessarily also different. The difference is in their situations.
A customer problem must be described as a specific situation where a particular customer is. In addition to the basic need to “boil water to make tea”, a customer problem specifies who the customer is, where they are and when, and what motives they have in the situation, among other aspects of the situation.
Principle 2: Customer problem is independent of solutions
A customer problem, properly understood, exists in the world independently of any past, present or future solutions. Descriptions of Alice’s, Bob’s and Carol’s customer problems illustrate this – they don’t contain anything about possible solutions to boil water. They only describe the situations.
Principle 3: One customer problem, multiple solutions
There are different, competing solutions to the same customer problem, and more can be invented. Some of the solutions are just better than others for a particular customer problem.
Principle 4: Different solutions to the same problem can be compared objectively
Given a specific customer problem, we can compare alternative solutions relatively objectively. We do this by analysing all the actions the customer has to perform in each situation to reach the desired end-result (hot water for making tea), and the quality of the end-result.
Objective comparison does not require empirical tests, such as getting a target user to actually light up a campfire. It only requires that we understand in detail what the situation is and how the different solutions function in it.
Principle 5: For a different customer problem, a different solution is best
Since we can compare alternative solutions for each customer problem, we can also determine which is the best solution out of the available alternatives. If a customer problem is different enough, a different solution is optimal, as illustrated by Alice’s, Bob’s and Carol’s situations.
Principle 6: There is no universally best solution
There is no universally best solution for the customer problem of “boiling water”. While it’s probably obvious, why is that so?
Because “boiling water” is too generic a description of a customer problem. In the real world, generic situations do not exist. In the real world, some particular customer is always in some specific situation.
To evaluate alternative solutions to any customer problem, we must investigate all the actions that a real person needs to take with a solution, and the result they can achieve. We can’t do that without a specific situation, because the situation determines how each solution can be used in it – if at all.
The goodness of a solution is thus a matter of fit between it and a particular customer problem. Problem-solution fit depends on both the problem and the solution.
Principle 7: Customer problem represents a class of essentially similar situations
While a customer problem must be described as a specific situation of a particular customer, it does represent a large number of somewhat different situations of different customers that are however essentially the same.
While every real situation is unique – specific to a particular individual at a particular time in a particular place in particular circumstances – out of the countless differences between unique situations and people, most details don’t matter when evaluating solutions. For example:
It doesn’t matter how old Alice is – the customer problem is the same. Personal characteristics of customers frequently don’t matter much or at all. (Except if Alice is a frail senior citizen with arthritis.)
It doesn’t matter whether Bob is hiking in Canada or Norway – the customer problem remains the same. (Saudi-Arabia might be different.)
It doesn’t matter whether Carol has 2 or 3 children – the customer problem doesn’t change. (But 10 kids could alter the situation.)
The situations of Alice, Bob and Carol are certainly not the only customer problems related to boiling water to make tea. A person performing a Japanese tea ceremony has a very different “customer problem” compared to theirs – the motive and the situation are completely different.
How do we identify which details about the customer and their situation do matter?
That is an in-depth topic to which I will return in a follow-up article. Subscribe now to find out!
Principle 8: Customer problems change only slowly, while solutions may change fast
Customer problems generally change quite slowly. Conversely, solutions change as quickly as humans imagine better solutions and innovate new technologies.
For example, Alice’s situation has existed for hundreds of years, while solutions have changed and improved. Humans have been boiling water on fire for millenia, while Trangia stoves and microwave ovens were introduced in the 1950’s.
The customer problem that Alice’s situation represents is likely to remain mostly the same for hundreds of years to come, at least if we believe that science fiction writers get it right. Think of the tea-drinking Captain Picard of the fictional Star Trek universe set in the 2300’s. His solution, however, is much better than Alice’s. When he wants to relax in the evening, he gives the iconic command “Tea, Earl Gray, hot.” Immediately, a cup of hot Earl Gray materialises in the food replicator that reconstitutes matter out of pure energy.
Summary of customer problems vs. solutions
The image below summarises the relationship between customer problems and solutions.
Customer problems are independent of solutions.
Each customer problem has many possible alternative solutions.
Different solutions fit each customer problem better or worse.
For each customer problem, there is a best solution.
There is no universally best solution.
The goodness of a solution is a matter of problem-solution fit.
Problem-solution fit can be evaluated objectively.
Customer problems are stable over time.
Solutions may change much faster than customer problems.
From tea to tech: Why this matters for your B2B product?
You might be thinking, “This is all very interesting, but I’m building enterprise software, not brewing tea.” Here’s where things get exciting.
Imagine crafting B2B products that hit the bullseye every time, deduced directly from a rock-solid understanding of customer problems. No more drowning in a sea of feature requests or chasing the latest tech trends.
Picture a world where you can predict product success with the accuracy of a master chess player, several moves ahead – without first developing the software or enduring months of expensive testing and iteration with customers.
Unlike Star Trek, that is not science fiction. It is the potential power that awaits when you truly grasp the universal principles that apply to all customer problems. That is the foundation of Deductive Innovation, my groundbreaking approach to creating B2B SaaS products that don't just enter markets – they revolutionise them.
In our next deep dive, I will break down the DNA of customer problems and get from the universal to the specifics. We will uncover the common threads that run from something as simple as brewing tea to situations like:
Operating a bustling hospital
Managing high-stakes reinsurance business
Inspecting nuclear plant safety
Planning airport logistics
Each of these scenarios, despite their vast differences, shares essential elements that, once understood, will transform how you approach product discovery and development of B2B SaaS.
Ready to see your product challenges in a whole new light? This is just the beginning of our journey to untangle the complexities of creating B2B software products.
Don’t miss out on insights that could catapult your product business to an industry leader status. Subscribe to join me on this voyage! Your future self (and your customers) will thank you.
Continue reading part #4 of the series: How to Define Customer Problems That Lead to Breakthrough B2B SaaS Products — Master the 10 Essential Elements of Customer Problems Your Competitors Miss!