Courses/Technology Product Entrepreneurship

Technology Product Entrepreneurship

CS9.424

Ramesh Loganathan + Prakash Yalla•Monsoon 2025-26•4 credits

Revision Notes/Unit 2 — Problem Analysis

Unit 2 — Problem Analysis

Levine's Law (fall in love with the problem); three levels of problem statements (vague → end-user → 4Ws+When); the 5Ws framework with Why as keystone; the seven-role stakeholder ecosystem (Decision Maker, Influencer, Buyer, Manager, Operator, Evaluator, CFO); the implications triad (Magnitude × Frequency × Population → Painkiller vs Vitamin); survey design without bias (past behaviour, quantified pain); the Detective Phase.

Defining the Problem, Quantifying Implications, Bias-Free Validation

13 min

Phase 2 has a single instruction: **stop loving your solution; start interrogating the problem.** Uri Levine's Tree puts it visually — Problem is the root, Solution is the trunk, Product is the leaves. Weak root → tree falls. Phase 2 is two halves: (1) **Define the problem** at Level 3 precision using the 5Ws (with Why as the keystone) and map every stakeholder around it; (2) **Prove the problem is worth solving** via Magnitude × Frequency × Population — the Painkiller test. Then before you graduate to Phase 3, you talk to real customers with surveys that don't contaminate their answers (past behaviour, quantified pain, no leading questions).