📌 Rule No. 2 —Fall in love with the problem, not the solution.

Think of a turning point in your company where reframing the problem changed everything. What question did someone ask that shifted the conversation? Where do leaders most often fall into the trap of defending their solution instead of re-examining the problem—and have you ever caught yourself doing it?

1. Where did you spend months building the wrong solution because you misunderstood the real problem? What finally exposed it?

2. Tell us about a time when your customer forced you to admit you were solving the wrong problem. What changed after that realization?

3. What’s a moment in your company when someone asked a question that completely reframed the problem you were trying to solve?

We’re looking for short stories, insights, or turning points from CEOs, founders, and business leaders that answer those not-so-simple questions.

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• Rule No. 2 Fall in love with the problem, not the solution. | The Mom Test

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Solutions change. The problem worth solving rarely does.

Now that you’ve identified your customer’s real problem, let me challenge you with a question that requires and little ego check. Ask yourself…

Are we defending our solution…or are we actually solving our customer’s real need?

— The Trap Smart Founders Fall Into

The smarter the founder, the more dangerous the trap.

Intelligent people are excellent at building compelling arguments. They can rationalize a product direction with logic that sounds airtight. They can explain why the market needs what they’ve built. They can find evidence to support almost any conclusion they’ve already reached.

This is exactly the problem.

I’ve been there. You invest capital. You commit payroll. You rally your team. And once you do, it’s human nature to protect what you’ve built. But protecting your idea and solving the right problem aren’t the same thing. If you find yourself explaining to your team why customers should care, instead of proving that they already do, that’s a warning sign.

In his book, The Mom Test, Rob Fitzpatrick wrote clearly about what happens when entrepreneurs ask the wrong questions. They talk to potential customers and hear what they want to hear. The customer is polite. The founder is encouraged. And the product gets built on a foundation of misread signals.

“Your idea is amazing. Your customer just doesn’t care.”

The discipline is to stay attached to the problem, not the solution you’ve already invented. That means asking customers about their lives, their frustrations, their workarounds — not about whether they’d buy what you’re about to pitch them.

One of our core principles at The Executives Institute reflects this directly: Fall in love with the problem, not the solution. It is deceptively simple advice. It is also among the hardest to actually practice.

The solution will change. The problem, if it’s real, won’t.

🔍 Additional Executive Questions about discovering real customer needs

1. What evidence would force us to abandon or rethink our current solution?

If there’s no clear answer, you’re not actually open to discovering the truth.

2. When was the last time you personally observed a customer struggling with the problem you claim to solve?

If the answer is vague or second-hand, discovery has likely been delegated too far away from decision-makers.

3. What do customers consistently complain about—even when it has nothing to do with your product?

Real needs often surface in frustration, not feature requests.

4. What customer behavior surprised you in the last 90 days?

If nothing comes to mind, you may be relying on assumptions instead of observation.

5. Which customer insight caused you to change course—not just refine execution?

If insights never lead to meaningful change, they’re probably not real insights.

6. What problem do customers solve without you today?

This reveals both competition and the true priority of the problem.

7. Whose job is it to challenge whether we’re solving the right problem—and how often do they do it?

If no one owns this role, solution attachment is likely running the show.

🔁 Actionable Strategies

🗂 Implement “Problem Reviews” instead of just Product Reviews
In your leadership meetings or sprint kickoffs, dedicate time to reviewing what problem you’re solving, for whom, and how you know it still matters. Track this the same way you would KPIs.

🗂 Ban solution-first thinking in early-stage brainstorming
For the first half of ideation sessions, only allow team members to bring up customer problems, not solutions. It forces deeper empathy and widens your field of view.

🗂 Set a “3 Alternatives” Challenge
Anytime a new solution is proposed, require the team to list three other ways to solve the same problem. This exposes assumptions and encourages creative, problem-first thinking.

🗂 Create a Problem Validation Scorecard
Before investing in a new initiative, score it across criteria such as problem urgency, frequency, financial impact, and customer behavior. Don’t move forward without a high score.

🗂 Assign a “Problem Owner” for each product or initiative
While product managers focus on delivery, the Problem Owner ensures the team remains grounded in the actual user challenge. They are responsible for continuous validation and redefinition.

🗂 Regularly revisit and reframe the problem statement
Every 30–60 days, require teams to restate the core problem they’re solving in one sentence. If it’s changed—or unclear—that’s your cue to pause or pivot.

🗂 Use job-shadowing or direct observation, not just surveys
Encourage your teams to sit with customers, observe workflows, or join customer support calls. Real problems often reveal themselves in behavior, not answers.

🗂 Reward internal red-flag raising
Create psychological safety by praising team members who question whether a solution is still solving the right problem. It builds a culture of intellectual honesty.

📘 Book Summary

The Mom Test by Rob Fitzpatrick is a short, tactical guide to asking better questions and getting honest, useful feedback when talking to customers. The central premise is simple: you can’t trust people—especially your mom—to tell you the truth if your questions are flawed.

Fitzpatrick teaches entrepreneurs how to avoid biased feedback by asking about past behaviors rather than opinions or hypotheticals. Instead of asking, “Would you use this?”, you learn to ask, “How have you solved this in the past?” The goal is to uncover real pain points, not polite compliments.

This book is a must-read for anyone building products, launching a business, or trying to truly understand their audience. It emphasizes listening over pitching and relentlessly testing assumptions.

Key Executive Takeaway

Never trust compliments, guesses, or hypotheticals in customer conversations. Instead, focus relentlessly on uncovering real problems, real priorities, and real behavior. Great businesses aren’t built by pitching ideas and hoping for validation—they’re built by listening, testing, and solving problems that matter.

Key Terms for Rule no.2

Problem-Market Fit
The degree to which a real, pressing problem exists in the market—and how well it’s understood. Achieving this comes before product-market fit and determines whether a solution is even worth building.

Confirmation Bias
The tendency to seek, interpret, or remember information in a way that confirms preexisting beliefs—often causing teams to hear what they want to hear from customers, rather than what’s actually being said.

Customer Discovery
A process of interviewing and observing potential users to deeply understand their problems, behaviors, and needs—without pitching a solution.

Solution Attachment
An emotional or cognitive bias toward a specific idea or product, making it hard to pivot even when the evidence suggests it’s not working.

The Mom Test
A concept and shorthand for asking better, unbiased customer questions—ones that don’t invite compliments, vague affirmations, or false positives. Named after the idea that “even your mom will lie to you if you ask the wrong way.”

Congratulations —you’re already doing what most leaders avoid—stepping back to challenge your assumptions. That’s the real work. Falling in love with the problem, not your solution, requires humility, curiosity, and discipline. It’s not easy—but it’s what separates reactive businesses from resilient ones.

The best leaders never stop listening. They ask better questions. They walk away from pet ideas. And they keep their teams grounded in what actually matters to the people they serve.

By engaging with this Rule, you’re not just building smarter solutions. You’re building a better business.

Note from The Executives’ Institute:

You may notice that some of our Business Rules overlap, echo similar themes, or even repeat certain language, such as Rule No. 1 and Rule No. 2. That’s not a mistake—it’s intentional. Great businesses aren’t built on one-time insights, but on fundamental principles reinforced again and again in different contexts.

At The Institute, we believe repetition is a feature, not a flaw. It’s how important ideas take root. When multiple rules point toward the same truth from different angles, it means you’re onto something worth paying attention to.

 This Rule isn’t finished—and it never will be. Business changes, leaders learn, and our Members keep sharpening the edges with real stories and hard-won lessons. What you see here is today’s version. Tomorrow’s will be better, clearer, and backed by even more field-tested experience.