"What problem do you solve?"

How you answer this may determine if your startup lives or dies.

Sara Santanen, a positioning consultant on our team, came up with a simple framework to help make sure you choose the right problem.

Problems live on two spectrums:

1) small to large

Not all problems are equal in size or scope. Some only create pain in a very specific point of someone's day.

Other problems span multiple teams across months (or even years).

2) no ownership to clear ownership

Problems can fall under the purview of a specific person... or they can be nebulous and span multiple teams and departments with no clear owner.

Depending on the combination of small/large and clear ownership/no ownership, you can either end up in a GREAT place...

...or you can end up in no-man's-land where your startup will continue to languish and ultimately fail.