PROBLEM: I have expertise, but I don't know how to turn it into a business.
First find a profitable idea for your expertise, you need to start by finding a problem worth solving
STEP 1: Finding a Problem Worth Solving
You already know something valuable.
But expertise alone doesn’t tell you what business to build around it.
Don’t start with:
What can I sell?
Start with:
What valuable problem can my expertise help someone solve?
That’s the first step from expertise to business.
The EVUNN Mindset Shift
Before you begin, make three shifts:
1. Expertise → Problems
Your expertise is the raw material, not the product. Ask: What problems am I uniquely equipped to solve?
2. Assumptions → Curiosity
Your ideas about what people need are hypotheses, not facts. Stay curious and don’t fall in love with your first idea.
3. What I Know → What They Need
You know your expertise. They know their problem. Your job is to find where the two intersect.
To find the problem, use Book 1. Title: What's Your Problem?
Author: Thomas Wedell-Wedellsborg
Time Investment: 5+ hours (Audiobook)
Listen on Libro.fm | Buy on Bookshop.org
The Big Idea from the book:
The Big Idea
The way you define a problem determines the solutions you can see.
Professionals often start with the problem exactly as it appears on the surface. But the first problem you hear may not be the real problem.
The point is to learn to look beyond the first description of the problem.
What Business Problem does this book help Solve?
This book helps you avoid one of the most expensive mistakes an expert can make:
Building a solution before understanding the problem people want to pay you to solve for them.
Your expertise may allow you to solve dozens of problems.
But you don’t have the time or resources to build businesses around all of them.
You first need to discover:
- What problems people actually experience
- How they currently describe those problems
- Whether the problem may be a symptom of something deeper
- How the problem could be framed differently
- Where your expertise could create meaningful value
This is problem discovery, not offer creation.
Should I Read this book Now?
YES.
Right now, your job is simply to become better at seeing valuable problems.
As you read, keep asking:
What problems might I be overlooking because I am looking at the world through the lens of my expertise?
Which Chapters in this Book Matter to you most right Now?
You don’t need to consume everything in this book now. Pay particular attention to these chapters.
Your Core Reading: Introduction + Chapters 1–5 + Chapter 8
If You Have More Time: Chapters 6, 7 and 9
Skip for Now: Chapter 11 and the supplementary material
Your objective: Learn to question the first version of a problem, examine it from different angles, and begin seeing it from the perspective of the person experiencing it.
Listen on Libro.fm | Buy on Bookshop.org
YOUR STEP 1 OUTCOME
By the end of this step (going through the chapters + toolkit), you should have:
- 10 potential problems your expertise could help solve
A clear idea of who experiences each problem
The situation and outcome behind each problem
An initial understanding of why each problem may matter
A hypothesis about how your expertise could help
You’ve moved from: I have expertise.
to: I can see potential problems my expertise could help solve.
These are hypotheses, not validated opportunities yet.
Ready to turn your expertise into problem opportunities?
Use the EVUNN Finding Problems Worth Solving Toolkit to work through the questions, organize your ideas, and turn your expertise into a structured list of potential problems.
That takes us to step 2.
The question we are now trying to answer is:
What is actually driving the customer’s decision to seek a solution?
Once you understand that, you can begin looking at the problem from the customer’s side, not yours so you can create a solution they want to pay for.
