Problem-Solving Businesses That Work
Problem-first business approach: identify painful problems people face, quantify the pain and cost, validate willingness to pay, then build solutions.
What is this page about?
A guide to building problem-solving businesses, opening with a dentist paying 200 dollars a month for an automated appointment-reminder service that cut no-shows 60% against a 150,000-dollar annual loss. It argues problem-first beats solution-first, covers where to find problems worth solving and the hard work of validating willingness to pay, problem categories with proven potential (workflow automation, compliance documentation, data integration), building a minimum viable solution, common failure modes, and why the most durable businesses are often boring.
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Every accepted correction to this page is recorded with the exact change, so readers can see how the page improved over time.
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2 corrections applied: Veeva's FY2017 revenue was ~$544M; it did not reach ~$1B until ~FY2020. | Only Gassner came from Salesforce; Wallach's background was healthcare/pharma CRM, not Salesforce.
BeforeThe company reached $1 billion in annual revenue by 2017, 10 years after founding... Peter Gassner and Matt Wallach, both former Salesforce employees
AfterThe company reached about $550 million in annual revenue by 2017 and roughly $1 billion in annual revenue by 2020... Peter Gassner and Matt Wallach, Gassner a former Salesforce executive and Wallach from the pharmaceutical/healthcare CRM industry
Why: Two corrections: Veeva's FY2017 revenue was approximately $544 million, not $1 billion (which it did not reach until roughly FY2020); and only Gassner came from Salesforce, while Wallach's background was healthcare/pharma CRM, not Salesforce. Verified the live article body already reflects both corrected figures. The faq field does not mention Veeva, Gassner, or Wallach at all, so no secondary fix was needed there.
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