Article · ~7 min read

Is Your Startup Building a Vitamin or a Painkiller?

George Deeb · Forbes Free Beginner

A short, clear framing of the difference between a nice to have and a must have. It helps you honestly ask whether people would lose sleep without your product or simply shrug. Handy shorthand for testing whether the pain is urgent enough to build a business on.

  • Painkillers solve urgent pain, vitamins are only nice to have
  • Urgent problems drive fast adoption and willingness to pay
  • If a problem can be postponed, question whether it is real pain
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It answers 3 questions

  1. How do I evaluate whether an idea is big enough to be worth years of my life?
  2. I keep getting warm interest and 'this is great' but no one pays. How do I turn the first yes into money?
  3. Do I even have a real problem, or just a solution I'm attached to?

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