How to Stop Fixing and Start Finding the Next Big Solution

In a market drowning in "solutions" that only solve old problems, true success lies in identifying the new problems your audience doesn't even know they have yet. We’re ripping up the old playbook: this is about moving beyond iteration to true market creation. You’re about to learn a systematic, actionable framework to stop reacting to the competition and start dictating the future.

The Tyranny of the 'Upgrade'

Let me paint a picture you know all too well. You log in to your project management software, and there it is: another "revolutionary update." They've moved a button, changed the color scheme, maybe added an integration you'll never use. It's not a new solution; it's a slightly better hammer for an already-fixed nail. The market is saturated with these incremental improvements. They don't create value; they just create noise. If you're stuck in this cycle—tweaking, polishing, and constantly "improving"—you're fighting over scraps. The real players aren't building a better mouse trap; they're creating a world where mice don't exist. The digital dilemma? We've become experts at solving the visible problem, blinding us to the invisible opportunity.

The High Cost of Stagnation

This isn't just about market perception; it's about cold, hard cash. According to a McKinsey report on growth and innovation, only 6% of businesses believe their current investments in innovation are meeting or exceeding their expectations. Think about that: 94% of companies are sinking money into R&D that isn't delivering breakthrough results. Furthermore, analysis from Clayton Christensen's disruptive innovation research highlights that incumbent market leaders, stuck defending their existing solutions, often miss the small, nascent markets that become the next billion-dollar opportunities. You need a strategy to capture that 94% and start making the big bets pay off.

A Three-Step Blueprint for Breakthrough Solutions

Finding the next big solution requires a shift from a Reactive Mindset to a Discovery Mindset. We’re not looking at what people are buying; we’re looking at what they’re struggling with.

Step 1: The 'Un-Solutioning' Audit: Identifying the Market Blind Spot

Most companies look at their competitor’s features. Amateurs. We look at Job-to-Be-Done (JTBD) theory and see where current solutions fail.

• Audit Your Assumptions: List every core problem your industry solves. Now, brutally critique the hidden friction that existing solutions introduce. Example: Travel booking solved the "find a flight" problem, but created the "manage price volatility and complex cancellation fees" problem.

• Identify the 'Workarounds': Pay zero attention to what users say and 100% attention to what they do. Where are your target users creating messy spreadsheets, downloading third-party plugins, or running manual scripts? The workaround is the blueprint for the new solution.

Key Takeaway: The next breakthrough isn't a feature; it's eliminating a systemic frustration that everyone has learned to tolerate.

Step 2: The Adjacent Leap: Connecting Unrelated Dots

Innovation rarely comes from deep within a single industry. It comes from applying a mature solution from one sector to an unsolved problem in another. This is the Adjacent Leap.

• The Cross-Industry Scan: Look for mature, hyper-optimized technologies in completely unrelated fields. Think about how logistics (like Amazon's delivery network) could solve a problem in healthcare administration.

• The Constraint Flip: Identify a major constraint in your industry (e.g., high upfront cost, long delivery time). Now, imagine a product that leverages that constraint or makes it irrelevant. Example: A subscription model (leveraging the cost constraint) instead of a single purchase.

Key Takeaway: Stop looking at your competitors for inspiration. Look at the financial services, biotech, or gaming industries. The most advanced solutions are already out there; they just haven’t been applied to your problem set yet.

Step 3: Build the Minimum Viable Story (MVS), Not Just the MVP

Everyone knows the Minimum Viable Product (MVP). But a solution without a compelling narrative is dead on arrival. We build the Minimum Viable Story (MVS) first.

• The Pre-Mortem Narrative: Before writing a line of code, draft the press release announcing your product's success three years from now. What specific, unsolvable problem did you crush? How did you fundamentally change the user's daily life?

• Test the 'Why': The MVP tests functionality. The MVS tests market appetite. Run a landing page with nothing but your powerful narrative and a sign-up form. If people are willing to give you their email for a non-existent product, you’ve hit a nerve. The sign-up rate is your market signal.

Key Takeaway: Your goal is not to sell a product. Your goal is to sell the escape from a universally acknowledged hell.

The Conclusion: Stop Iterating, Start Initiating

The market is awash in minor fixes. Your challenge, and your opportunity, is to find the virgin territory—the problems that are so ingrained, so frustrating, that they’ve become invisible. We moved from simply using existing solutions to a systematic method: conducting the Un-Solutioning Audit to find the friction, executing the Adjacent Leap to find the breakthrough mechanism, and validating with the Minimum Viable Story to prove market desire. Go out there and stop trying to build a better version of what already exists. Start defining what’s next.