Why Great Brands
Don’t Have Obvious
Answers
Rohit Bhargava
to make healthy food taste better – though their customers
do love the food. Clover Food Lab’s solution is to make
healthy food faster.
Akshaya Patra is an award winning charity that works with
schools in 9 states across India. Every day, the nonprofit
organization prepares fresh hot lunches and feeds more
than 1.3 million students in 19 locations across India. The
problem they are solving is keeping kids in school – but
instead of financial incentives, their incentive is based on a
simple truth. If kids get a meal at school (which sometimes
may be their only meal of the day), then parents are far
more likely to insist that their kids attend school every day.
Akshaya Patra’s solution is to make food the incentive to
attend school.
What problem are you solving?
It’s one of the most basic and fundamental questions in
business … and one that most brands believe they need to
be able to answer. The best ideas solve problems, right?
There is a problem with this logic. Ideas that make money
or change the world don’t just solve problems. They offer
unexpected solutions.
For example, healthy food often does not taste as good as
unhealthy food. The obvious solution is to try and make
healthy food that tastes better. In poor societies around
the world, children are often forced to work instead of
going to school because their families need the money.
The obvious solution is to create some type of financial
incentive for parents to continue to allow their children
to go to school. The world is filled with obvious problems
that seem to require obvious solutions.
Great brands are not obvious. Great
solutions are not either.
Clover Food Lab is a food truck near the MIT campus
in Boston. It’s operation is so efficient, that are able to
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