PROBLEM: I understand the problem, but I don't fully understand what it's like to experience it.
To find a profitable problem to solve, you must understand what it is like to experience the problem
STEP 3: DEVELOPING EMPATHY
You can identify a problem and understand why someone might want to solve it.
But there’s still a danger:
You may be interpreting their problem through your own expertise.
Before deciding what solution to build, you need to learn how to listen, understand and see the situation from their perspective.
The EVUNN Mindset Shift
From What I Think → What They Experience
Don’t assume you already know what your customer needs.
Instead ask: What can I learn by listening to how they actually experience this problem?
Empathy isn’t guessing what people feel. It’s developing a better understanding of their experience.
To understand their experience, use Book 3. Title: Practical Empathy
Author: Indi Young
Time Investment: 5+ hours (Audiobook)
Listen to Audiobook with Audible free trial |Buy at the Bookshop
The Big Idea from Practical Empathy
Empathy helps you move beyond assumptions and develop a deeper understanding of how people experience problems, situations, what they do, and what matters to them.
For an expert, this is a critical shift. Your expertise tells you what you think the problem is. Empathy helps you understand the problem from their perspective.
What Does this Book Help you Achieve?
Practical Empathy helps you:
Listen without immediately interpreting
Understand people’s experiences more deeply
Separate what people actually say from your assumptions
Make sense of what you hear
Identify patterns across people’s experiences
Use those insights to improve what you create
The goal isn’t to become better at selling.
It’s to become better at understanding.
Should I Read it Now?
YES.
You’ve already explored:
Step 1: What problems might exist?
Step 2: Why might people want to solve them?
Now you need to understand: What is this experience actually like for the person living through it?
Which Chapters Matter Most for me Now?
Chapter 2: Empathy Brings Balance (Essential)
Understand what empathy actually means and why it matters when making decisions about customers.
Chapter 3: Put Empathy to Work (Essential)
Learn how empathy can become part of how you investigate and understand problems.
Chapter 4: A New Way to Listen (Essential)
This is one of the most important chapters for this stage.
Learn to listen to someone’s experience without immediately jumping to solutions, advice or conclusions.
Chapter 5: Make Sense of What You Heard (Essential)
Find out how to process and deepen your understanding of what people tell you.
Chapter 6: Apply Empathy to What You Create (Essential)
Understand how patterns in people’s experiences can influence what you eventually create.
Chapter 1: Business Is Out of Balance (Read this chapter for context only)
It explains why relying only on numbers and analytical thinking can leave important parts of the customer experience invisible.
Skip Chapters 7–9 for now
They focus more heavily on applying empathy within workplaces and organizations.
Listen to Audiobook with Audible free trial | Buy at the Bookshop
Your Step 3 Outcome
By the end of this step, you should have:
A deeper understanding of the experience behind each problem of the 3 problems generated in step 1
A clearer distinction between what you know and what you’re assuming
Initial insight into what people think, feel and do
A better understanding of their frustrations and desired outcomes
A list of questions you still need to investigate with real people
Notice what hasn’t happened yet:
You haven’t validated the problems yet. That’s intentional.
You’ve developed empathy, but empathy based on your own reflection is still not enough.
The next step takes you deeper.
Ready to Put Empathy into Practice?
Ready to Put Empathy into Practice?Reading about empathy is not the same as practising it.
The EVUNN Customer Empathy Toolkit gives you a structured way to examine the problem from the customer’s perspective and separate evidence from assumptions.
One Payment. For All EVUNN Stage 1 toolkits.
What Should I Learn Next?
You now have a better understanding of the customer’s experience.
But there’s another question:
What are they actually trying to accomplish?
A customer may describe a problem, but the problem itself isn’t always the real objective.
They may be trying to make progress toward something bigger.
Step 4: Jobs-to-Be-Done
You’ll move from: Understanding their experience to understanding the progress they’re actually trying to make.
