Founding a Problem Centric Startup!

I often wonder why startups, especially in Pakistan have a hard time in becoming major market player in their respective field. Almost everyone who starts up a tech company has a technical background. And tech people normally tend to be inclined more towards technology than problem solving. This is the actual problem with many startups in tech industry in Pakistan.

Startups like designing a product, protocol or software have a bottom-up approach. You start with a problem in mind and then use whatever technologies are at your disposal to solve that problem. It does not work the other way around as is the case with many tech startups now a days. Look around you; there are countless problems. Some of the major problems are: (even a kid knows about these you have to dig deeper than this to find more)

1. Energy Crisis
2. Security
3. Privacy

About energy and security everyone is aware. But privacy is a growing concern for privacy aware people. Ideas and apps like SnapChat are becoming popular as opposed to traditional messaging applications. Startup should be about bringing something new to the table that solves problems that people face and cure the pain they feel and then telling them “we have what you need”. I have seen people reinvent the wheel time and again. For a young entrepreneur, it is really important that they have what people need.

Funding, administrative issues and recruitment of relevant people is a secondary concern. Primary being need for a problem solving idea. Target market analysis is very important for a startup. How often do you find your friend missing from memorable pictures because they are behind the camera taking the picture? See here is a problem; Groopic is born; with the sole purpose of solving this problem. And I think they are fairly successful.

Changing the way we think can surely help create bigger and better startups. The ones that are actually needed by the people. Funding, expansion and better setups will follow automatically.