Outline the problem with or without your solution?

Hey Cole,

To an extend it depends, but in general I would always say focus on understanding the problem first.

(Although disclaimer, I would say this, as our product Inquisitive - https://inqu.is/ - focusses on this).

To explain a little more:

• Matching customer segment / problem is the foundation of every startup

• For me, the best definition of an early adopter focusses around this (i.e. someone who has the problem, recognises they have the problem, have budget to fix it and have tried to hack something together themselves)

• If you stay focussed on the problem and obsess around that, it give you the flexibility you inevitably need to continue to pivot the solution (It's anecdotal, but I'd agree with many startup experts who say startups that go through one or multiple pivots are more likely to be successful)

• When you go into 'solution' mode in your landing page, you're actually testing a lot more than that (e.g. you're also testing the value proposition, and how you communicate it)

You can certainly go with your 'Version B' above, but bear in mind tat - if it doesn't work -it can be more difficult to piece together why.

Hope that helps.

Best,
Rob

P.S. Final pointer. If you're planning on doing customer interviews, I would highly recommend skim-reading The Mom Test first - http://manuelohan.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/The-Mom-Test-en.pdf

It's an excellent resource for doing high-quality customer interviews, and remaining problem- and customer-focussed