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Former Google CEO Larry Page famously uses the “Toothbrush Test” to evaluate business ideas—asking whether a product is “something you will use once or twice a day.” Y Combinator CEO Michael Seibel takes a similar approach for startups but applies it to understanding customer problems.
Seibel emphasizes that every founder should analyze the frequency and intensity of the problem they’re solving. He illustrates this with an example: a car shopping website. Most founders assume their customer is the person buying the car. But as Seibel points out, this person typically changes cars only once every seven years.
“What happens if I told you I was going to create a startup and if my customer absolutely loves me, they’re going to come back 7 years from now?” he asks. “Probably not a great startup idea.”
That’s why many successful car marketplaces focus on the seller instead—the person who deals with this problem daily. According to Seibel, understanding how often a problem occurs and how painful it is determines whether there’s a viable business opportunity.
“A lot of founders think they have a good idea, but they don’t do this frequency and intensity analysis. If you have an infrequent and low-intensity problem that you’re trying to solve, you’re going to have a hard time getting a lot of customers interested in even talking to you.”
High-frequency, high-intensity problems usually make for stronger businesses. For instance, Uber targets a problem that’s both frequent and urgent. When someone needs to get somewhere—whether it’s to work, a doctor’s appointment, or to pick up their kids—the need is immediate and recurring. That combination of frequency and intensity is what makes Uber’s business model so powerful.
Seibel’s message is simple: if your customer’s problem happens often and causes real pain, you’re likely solving something worth building a company around.
