Sure, this sounds very obvious, but have you ever considered how important scoping the problem really is? In short, cranking out a solution without a clear problem definition may very well lead to an 'unfit' product even before it is launched.

So, Why should I focus on the problem statement rather than the solution?

Check the following pitches from founders of two successful startups.

Video 1: Pitch Meebo.com by Seth

Video 2: Pitch Songza.com by Aza

Did you notice how each founder pitched their product? In case you missed it, here is what they said:

Seth said, "Meebo.com is a website that does live interaction on the web. Our goal is to get live activity back into the web. We have Meebo rooms ..."

While Aza said, "Don't you hate it when you have a song stuck in your head and you cannot find it in your itunes library or the web -- Well you can goto Songza.com, type in the name of the song and just like google, you can immediately listen to that song and share it with your friend."

For the record, both Meebo and Songza (great products btw) were acquired by Google in 2012 and 2014 respectively.

I don't know about you, but I personally found the later pitch easier to understand since Aza painted a pretty picture of what the problem really is and how Sonza helps solve it. Regarding the former, Seth started with the solution (implementation), although I understood what Meebo does, it was unclear to me as a user as to what painpoint Meebo helps solve.

If you have a different opinion here, I would love to hear why.