What Comes First: the Problem or the Solution?

I know, it sounds like a nutty question; just bear with me for a minute.

There's an interesting debate taking place in the comments of How to Derive a Value Proposition that highlights an age-old dilemma. In any strategic process, what comes first chronologically, determining the needs or value drivers of the customer, or determining the competencies or value proposition of the company?
Before we take on the general question, let's first look at how it relates to the process of developing a company's value proposition, i.e. the debate at hand:

According to reader jcballand:

[In developing a value proposition] I would add one step to the ones you mentioned, and that step should be first: Identify the customer's value drivers: what benefits are the ones that will make a difference in the customers' choice of vendors. The customer is the one that judges value. Without this first step, a value proposition runs the risk to turn whatever feature or "strength" the company thinks it has into supposedly important customer benefits.

Hang on, why would you do that?

Aren't you then just morphing what your value prop is into what is going to sound cool to the customer?

I agree it's a step but shouldn't you independently work out what your value prop is (based presumably on the aggregate of the company's strategy(-ies) over time and THEN once you have a value prop, see if it matches your "customers" drivers?

Seems that you may find through independent analysis that you can find MORE customers, or at least really find out if you are misaligned with your existing customers value drivers, but looking at this last, rather than first and 'poisoning the well' so to speak.

Well, after watching a few companies debate this question, I finally came down on the side of jcballand. Any strategic process should first understand the needs and value drivers of the market it serves and its customer base. That doesn't "poison the well," it provides context. Developing a strategy or value proposition essentially in a vacuum has far greater risk, IMO.

Look at it this way: entrepreneurs typically find a critical problem to solve and then solve it. That's one thing that actually shouldn't change as a company matures. First comes the problem, then the solution. A solution looking for a problem to solve can also work, but the risk of market failure goes way up with that approach.

At least that's my take. What's yours?