Reading :: Fall in Love with the Problem, Not the Solution

 Fall in Love with the Problem, Not the Solution: A Handbook for Entrepreneurs

By Uri Levine

This highly readable, conversational book is written by the co-founder of Waze. Although he doesn’t explicitly base his book on Lean Startup, Levine embraces a similar view of entrepreneurship. That is: You have to deeply understand the problems faced by customers, and you have to “fall in love” with that problem rather than railroading customers into the solution you’ve already designed. You have to embrace failure and learn from it. You have to spend a lot of time understanding the user (who is not necessarily the customer). You have to figure out product-market fit. All of this must be done through intense dialogue with stakeholders.

So far, so Lean. But through stories of Waze and many other startups, Levine goes beyond Lean Startup’s focus on customer discovery and also discusses fundraising, managing investors, firing and hiring, going global, and eventually exiting (i.e., selling the company or folding it). The book really takes us across the entire entrepreneur’s journey. 

This scope means that Levine doesn’t necessarily get into the details of each step. For instance, he doesn’t provide conceptual apparati such as Ries’ build-measure-learn loop or Blank’s customer discovery loop. Instead, he provides a big picture view of what it’s like to start with an idea, build a venture in constant dialogue with customers, get it funded, and eventually sell a thriving company (or pull the plug on one that can’t thrive).

In urging us to fall in love with the problem, not the solution, Levine also emphasizes an understanding of entrepreneurship as an act of service. He drives this point home with the metaphor of love rather than more heroic or combative metaphors — he doesn’t describe entrepreneurship as war, sport, competition, or journey. Instead, the metaphor of love keeps us focused on acts of love that we can undertake to make people’s lives better. This metaphor is not totally consistent — sometimes we fall in love with the problem, sometimes we are encouraged to see the startup itself as the object of love, and sometimes we are told to love the users — and sometimes it is gendered (Levine likens the startup to a girlfriend we introduce to our friends), which has its own problems. But overall, the metaphor is a refreshing contrast to (for instance) Moore describing markets as the beaches of Normandy during D-Day. 

If you’re interested in starting your own startup, or understanding them, definitely pick up this book.