This is Episode 1 of the “Single-Person Business from Scratch” series.
You don’t sell a product or service. You sell the solution to a problem.
Most business owners get this wrong. They think they sell personal training, bookkeeping, meal prep, web design. But that’s not what you sell. That’s what you do.
What you sell is the solution to a problem. And this distinction matters because the thing you do will change as you grow. The problem you solve stays constant.
If you think you sell meal prep services, you’ve locked yourself into a specific delivery method. You’ve built a job, not a business.
If you know you sell “getting dinner on the table without the stress,” you can pivot to meal planning apps, grocery delivery curation, recipe subscriptions, or coaching. The problem stays the same. The solution evolves.
The product is temporary. The problem is permanent.
Finding Your Problem
Before you talk about platforms, pricing, marketing, or any tactical work, you need to answer one question: what problem are you solving?
Here’s how to find out.
The Listening Exercise (For People Starting from Scratch)
For the next week, pay attention to the problems people complain about. Your friends. Your family. Your coworkers. The person in line at the coffee shop.
Don’t filter. Don’t judge. Don’t dismiss something because it doesn’t sound like a business idea yet.
Just listen and write it down.
Your goal: capture 10 problems. Write them exactly as people say them:
- “I hate meal planning.”
- “I never know what to wear.”
- “My back hurts from sitting at my desk all day.”
- “I can’t figure out how to use this software.”
- “I’m so tired of arguing with my spouse about money.”
You’re not solving these problems yet. You’re documenting them.
Now, filter for what’s worth pursuing.
Frequency: Did you hear the same problem from multiple people? Did the same person bring it up more than once? Frequency tells you the problem is widespread, not just one person’s quirk.
Willingness to pay: Are people already spending money trying to solve this? Look for evidence. Apps, supplements, books, services, workarounds. If they’re spending money, the problem is real. If they’re just complaining but doing nothing, the problem isn’t painful enough.
Frustration versus resignation: Pay attention to tone. Frustration means they’re still looking for a solution. Resignation means they’ve given up. You want frustration. That’s where the market is.
Your advantage: Which of these problems are you uniquely positioned to solve? Not “what are you good at.” What combination of skills, access, experience, or perspective makes you the right person to help?
You’re not looking for the perfect idea. You’re looking for a problem that shows up repeatedly, that people are already trying to solve, and that you have an unfair advantage in addressing.
Once you find that, you’ve found what you sell.
The Product Autopsy Exercise (For Existing Businesses)
If you already own a business, this works differently. You already have products, services, clients.
But if I asked you right now, “What do you sell?” you’d probably give me a list of services.
That’s not the answer.
Let’s figure out what you actually sell. I call this the Product Autopsy Exercise, adapted from Mike Michalowicz’s Pumpkin Plan.
Step one: List everything you currently sell. Every product, service, package, add-on. Everything.
Step two: For each item, answer these four questions:
- What problem does this solve?
- Who has this problem worst?
- What do they try before coming to you?
- What happens if they don’t solve it?
Write it out. This takes time. Do it anyway.
Step three: Find the pattern.
Is there one core problem all your best clients share? Are you solving the same problem in different ways? Are some of your products solving problems your best clients don’t have?
Most business owners discover they’re offering way too much. They’ve added products and services over the years because a client asked for it, or because a competitor was doing it, or because they thought they should.
But here’s the truth: you’re not selling meal prep AND bookkeeping AND web design. You’re solving one problem for one person, possibly in multiple ways.
Step four: Cut or consolidate.
Everything that doesn’t solve your core problem is a distraction. It’s diluting your message, fracturing your focus, and keeping you from becoming the obvious choice for the people who need you most.
This is hard. You’ll want to keep things because they generate revenue or because you’ve invested time in building them.
Cut them anyway.
The businesses that scale are the ones that stay anchored to a problem, not a delivery method.
Why This Matters
If you think you’re a personal trainer, you’re locked in. Your business is you, trading time for money, limited by the number of hours in a day.
If you know you solve the problem of people feeling weak and invisible as they age, you’ve got options. You can offer training, online programs, supplement lines, community building, coaching, retreats.
The problem stays the same. The solutions multiply.
That’s the difference between a job and a business.
And this is where AI becomes a force multiplier. Once you know what problem you’re solving, AI can help you test solutions, build systems, create content, automate delivery. But if you don’t know what you’re solving, AI just helps you do the wrong thing faster.
So start here. What do you sell?
Not what you do. What problem do you solve?
If you can’t answer that in one sentence, you don’t know yet.
What’s Next
Once you know what problem you’re solving, the next question is: what’s the best way to solve it?
And you don’t answer that by guessing. You answer it by testing.
In the next episode, we’ll walk through how to test 2-3 solutions before you commit to building anything. How to validate demand, collect feedback, and figure out what people will actually pay for.
But you can’t test solutions until you know what problem you’re solving.
Your assignment:
If you’re starting from scratch, complete the Listening Exercise. Capture 10 problems you hear people complain about this week. Write them down exactly as you hear them.
If you already own a business, complete the Product Autopsy. Map every single thing you currently offer to the problem it solves. Then look for the pattern.
Do this before the next episode. Everything we build from here depends on getting this right.
Chris Cooper is the founder of BusinessIsGood and the former founder of Two-Brain Business, the global gym mentorship company. He’s the author of six books on entrepreneurship and lives in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario.
