The right question is everything

You've often heard that as an entrepreneur it's not how you address problems but rather what problems you address that differentiates a successful startup from a failure.

Here are common questions that founders ask themselves or their customers:

- How can we make our product better?

- How can we further improve our technology?

- How can we get investors to come onboard before we contact customers?

- Can we delay discussing equity between co-founders till we contact investors ?

Here are some of the questions you should consider asking instead:

- How is our product getting better?

- Can we replicate the improvement consistently?

- Why is this improvement important?

- Who is this improvement important to?

- How do we know?

- Will they pay more for it ?

- What problem does my product solve for my customers?

- How long does the problem I'm trying to solve for my customers impact them?

- Once I solve the customer's problem, how can I stop my competitors replicating it?

By asking a different question, you can get to a very different destination - and that destination may well be a successful startup.

Please share a question a startup needs to ask that may change everything.