PAPER NO. 02
The Problem
You Are Closest To.
A real problem is rarely one fault. It is a cluster of connected failures.
How to map the whole problem, and why the cluster is the thing worth building against.
FROM TERRITORY TO PROBLEM
Stop hunting for
the one big thing.
The first paper ended with a territory. A space you have authority over because you have lived inside it.
This paper is about what you do next: find the specific problem worth building against.
Most people get this step wrong in the same way.
They look for the one big thing. The single bullet. The clean, quotable problem they can point at and say: that is what is wrong.
So they reduce a complicated reality to one sentence and start building against that sentence.
The product that follows often disappoints because the real problem was never as simple as the sentence used to describe it.
A lived problem is usually a cluster.
Five, six or seven connected failures that reinforce each other. You often see the whole shape only after you have lived inside the problem long enough to encounter each one.
The cluster is the thing. Not the headline.
If your description of the problem fits on a bumper sticker,
you probably have not mapped the whole problem yet.
Why does this matter?
Because if you build against one fault in the cluster, you can end up making something only marginally different from what already exists.
If you understand the connected problem, you have the chance to build against the structure underneath it.
To show you what I mean, here is the actual journey I took with inline figure skating equipment.
Not the polished founder version. The real progression of products, compromises, workarounds and observations that eventually added up to a map.
How I found the cluster,
one frame at a time.
When I first moved off the ice and onto inline, I bought a pair of off-ice skates.
I held them in my hands and they gave me no confidence.
They looked like something built in a garage rather than equipment for a serious figure skater.
I returned them before I had really skated on them.
That was the first signal, although I did not name it at the time.
The equipment did not look like it took the skater seriously.
Next I bought a Snow White inline frame.
Short. Three wheels.
I did not yet understand the geometry behind why wheel count mattered, but my body noticed the difference.
An ice blade creates three balance zones. Three wheels create two balance zones. Four wheels create three balance zones.
As an ice figure skater, the three-wheel geometry felt different from the geometry I had spent my skating life learning.
I returned them and moved to a four-wheel PIC Skate, which looked better, felt better and became the frame I started my inline career on.
But the pick on the PIC kept wearing down.
As it changed, I found myself adjusting my spin technique to compensate.
That is not a small thing.
When equipment degradation causes the skater to continually change technique, the skater is adapting to the equipment instead of the equipment supporting the skating.
Years later, companies began sending me frames to test.
I worked through the three-wheel options available at the time.
On several, the pick was too large for the way I skated. I could catch it on deep edges, crossovers and turns.
I would move it higher to reduce the chance of catching it, but that then changed its relationship to spins and jumps.
I was trading one compromise for another.
I also tested smaller picks, including the Roll Line Mini.
The size was closer to what I wanted, but the material behaved differently from what I wanted under skating use.
Over time I kept finding pieces of the answer in different places, but not one system that brought the whole answer together.
What the cluster
actually looked like.
Once I stopped trying to describe the problem as one complaint, the connected structure became much clearer.
Read the following as one system, not six independent criticisms.
Geometry that did not match ice.
An ice blade creates three balance zones.
Three wheels create two balance zones. Four wheels create three.
For an ice figure skater, that distinction changes the geometry underneath the skating.
The pick became a moving target.
On some equipment it wore in a way that changed how I skated.
On others the size or position created compromises between edge work, spins and jumps.
I could find individual parts that were closer to what I wanted, but not the combination I was looking for.
Adjustment was limited where I wanted control.
Different systems offered different levels of adjustment.
I wanted the skater to have meaningful control over the setup, including rocker axle adjustment and EDGE pick position, rather than treating one fixed configuration as right for everyone.
Figure skating equipment could learn from inline.
The wider inline skating world had already developed component ideas and hardware systems worth learning from.
I saw no reason inline figure skating equipment should ignore useful lessons simply because they came from another part of skating.
Cost affects whether people keep skating.
Figure skating already asks families to pay for boots, blades, coaching, ice time and everything surrounding them.
Inline equipment becomes another decision inside that reality.
Product design and company structure therefore cannot be separated completely from affordability and long-term access.
The equipment should feel worthy of the skater.
Figure skating is a discipline where equipment matters technically and emotionally.
Skaters care about what they use.
To me, how a product looks and feels is not separate from whether the category takes itself seriously.
The mistake of solving
one item.
Look at that cluster and imagine solving only one item.
A better pick alone would not change the wheel geometry.
Different geometry alone would not resolve every pick compromise.
A better-looking product could still fail technically.
A lower price would not help if the skating experience still required constant workarounds.
This is why solving the most visible complaint can be misleading.
The complaint people say out loud may be only one visible piece of the structure they are actually living with.
During the pandemic, before I built anything, I tried the route that seemed most obvious.
I spoke to John at PIC about whether an adjustable pick could solve part of the problem because I was wearing through picks quickly while skating outdoors.
He sent me plenty of replacement picks.
That was generous.
But looking back, the important realization was that changing one component would not answer everything I had learned from years of skating on the equipment.
I did not begin by deciding to build a company.
I began by trying to fix a problem.
The deeper I went, the clearer it became that the problem was larger than one component.
That is when the idea of building the whole system started to make sense.
What EDGE™
actually answers.
When I began developing the EDGE™ | Inline Figure Skating System, I was not designing against one isolated complaint.
I was designing against the connected map I had built through years of skating and testing.
Four wheels were deliberate because four wheels create three balance zones.
Rocker axles give the skater adjustment across the wheel positions.
The EDGE pick is adjustable because pick position is part of how the system interacts with the skater's technique.
The component architecture, mounting options and wider setup were developed as parts of the same system rather than as unrelated features.
None of those decisions means much when viewed as a bullet on a specification sheet.
Their meaning comes from the problem each one exists to answer.
How to know your cluster
is real.
There is a danger in this way of thinking.
Once you start looking for clusters, you can find them everywhere.
Some are structural problems. Some are just personal preferences turned into a list.
There is a difference.
I use three tests.
It connects.
The items reinforce or affect one another.
Fixing one may expose another, change another or leave the underlying structure unresolved.
If none of the items relate, you may simply have a collection of preferences.
Other people live with it too.
Watch what skaters, coaches, parents and other people in the category actually do.
Workarounds matter.
People often adapt to problems long before they learn to describe those problems clearly.
It survives time.
Structural problems tend to remain recognizable after the excitement of discovering them has passed.
If your entire map changes every few months, you may be following preference or fashion rather than something durable.
The next paper in this series, Build Something You Can Actually Deliver, takes the cluster you have mapped and turns it into scope.
The map tells you what is wrong.
The next step is deciding what you should actually build first.
DO THIS NOW
Map your
cluster.
Take the territory you defined at the end of Paper 01.
Sit with a blank page again.
The goal is to move beyond the headline problem and see the connected structure underneath it.
Write the headline complaint.
Start with the single sentence you normally use to describe the problem in your territory.
The one-liner you reach for when someone asks.
Get it onto the page so you can move beyond it. This is the entry point, not necessarily the cluster.
List every workaround you have made.
Every time you adjusted your behavior, changed your technique, paid extra, returned something or simply learned to live with a flaw, write it down.
Each workaround may reveal part of the problem you stopped noticing because you became used to it.
List every option you tried and rejected.
Write down the alternatives you tested and the specific reason each one failed to solve the problem for you.
The reasons matter more than the names.
Together they begin to map what the existing options are not answering.
Look for connections.
Draw lines between items that affect one another.
Geometry may affect technique. Cost may affect replacement decisions. One workaround may create another.
The connections are what turn a list into a system.
Run the three tests.
Does it connect?
Do other people live with it too?
Does it survive time?
If the answer is yes across all three, you may be looking at something structural rather than simply something you personally dislike.
THE BUILD SERIES · PAPER NO. 02
The problem is rarely
just one thing.
Learn to see the whole shape.