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Can a startup sell a solution before the problem exists?

Can a startup work on an idea that does not yet solve an existing problem, with the hope that it may create a new business landscape and enlighten its users of a problem they never knew existed?

Are there any real life examples of such companies or projects?

Answer 12222

I’d say the question is easily answereable: yes of course, but the underlying question is really unanswereable. Sure you can hope for it to become usefull, or you can try to create the problem, but success depends on many factors and in this case a lot on the solution you are actually creating. Nobody needs quadratic wheels and there is no way you’ll sell them (as wheels). On the other side, 50 years ago nobody thought they’d ever need a cellphone. A few hundred years ago, cannons where revolutionary.

Many inventions adress a problem that wasn’t there before - or at least was unknown. Did you need social networks before they arose? Did you need a machine for adding numbers when you could use your head? And still, not having them is unimaginable now.

Answer 12225

Are there any real life examples of such companies or projects?

There are plenty.

Henry Ford, for one, famously quipped that had he asked what his clients wanted they’d have answered stronger horses.

Apple and Microsoft when they launched are two more recent examples: the notion that you’d have an network connected computer on every work desk was bordering on science fiction in the age of mainframes, let alone in every home.

More recently: remember these then state-of-the-art smartphones that Jobs poked fun at before unveiling the original iPhone?

Smart phones before the iPhone

The iPad is pretty good example in its respect too. Though, admittedly in this case, many had tried the tablet form factor before - including Apple.

That being said, not everyone is a Henry Ford or a Steve Jobs. Nor does the typical entrepreneur get away with behaving like Pierre Desnos - who, the legend holds, was so utterly convinced yet keenly aware it was too novel to be grokked, that he basically cooked market study data in order to secure early investors and partners.

(I’d add: if you’re asking this here to find social validation that “go go go,” then pause and actually ask your future clients unless you’re a certifiable genius. For every successful entrepreneur that succeeds on a hunch, there are graveyards full of startups that failed because their founders were too arrogant or secretive to ask if anyone would buy what they were building.)

Answer 12224

John D. Rockefeller famously utilized this idea to open up the Chinese market for his fuel products:

“Libby saw to it that eight million Mei Foo, or “good luck” kerosene lamps were either sold for a pittance or given away free, with millions more soon to follow.”
To Light The Lamps Of China

Thus he created a market by presenting a solution for a problem people hadn’t considered, related to the relative safety of the lamps.

This strategy of giving something away falls under the concept of a “loss leader”, and can also be understood as “priming the pump”, although the latter term has different connotations, and the former term is not restricted to Rockefeller’s famous use.

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