031: Yes, every product is a Pain-relief device. Only "hurting" people might pay money for products.

Founders want customers, but ironically, the best way to get customers is by seeing the world in reverse. What kind of people are customers BEFORE they buy? Why do people pay money in the first place? Answering these questions will help you avoid the most common problem in startups: founders wasting a year on a bad startup idea. Nascent's perspective is that every product is a pain relief device: a Person in Pain who is hurting decides to pay money to get pain relief from a product. The money and the product are visible, but the pain is invisible. Here in Episode 31, we explore WHY categorizing emotions with the Yardstick of Pain™ (hurting, fine, joyous) predicts who might pay your startup. The big ideas for founders in this episode are (1) products imply hidden pain, (2) money is a metric for pain, and (3) pain is the signal of opportunity for your startup. In this episode:(00:00) Every product is a pain relief device(01:59) Entrepreneurs lack a useful definition of money(02:54) Wikipedia and Jobs to be Done (JTBD) don't explain why customers pay(04:19) Founders succeed by leveraging the relationship between pain, money and products(05:51) Examples of how products imply hidden pain(08:21) Nascent's definition of "money"(09:57) Search for accessible, empowered people with frequent, expensive, excruciating pain(11:40) Current pain determines the size of the opportunity Are you new to the Nascent podcast? This post provides context and a starting point. Let's connect:Newsletter: https://nascentstartups.comMiro board with visuals and frameworks: https://miro.com/app/board/uXjVGhU2Xoo=/Work with Mike: https://nascentidea.comLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikevladimerYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@NascentIdeaSpotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5BtFtYF6nVUkLu7d7VVnSYApple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/nascent-startups-podcast/id1728760830Twitter: https://x.com/NascentIdeaReach Mike at Podcast@NascentIdea.com Links and sources:Nascent Ep027: No, don't interpret discovery interviews by feel. Nascent Ep022: Yes, search for People in Pain. But they're invisible. Wikipedia's definition of money: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MoneyClayton Christensen on Jobs to Be Done (JTBD): Competing Against Luck https://www.amazon.com/dp/0062435612 Nascent frameworks referenced:People in Pain™ — The first signal a startup might have a customer. Every customer starts as a Person in Pain.Yardstick of Pain™ — A three-bucket emotional scale (hurting, fine, joyous) that founders use to categorize interviewees. Introduced in Ep027."Money" as defined by Nascent — Money is a metric for pain, and money is liquid pain relief. Introduced this episode.