Nov. 2, 2023
Read time: 3 minutes and 40 seconds.
tags:We all make mistakes—remember that awkward comment from years ago?
It happens.
But often, we’re too busy chasing solutions without truly understanding the problem. I’ve learned this the hard way, and it’s a lesson that applies to everything from personal growth to business. It’s something that has a recurring theme in my writing, and one that I need to remind myself of each and every day:
Mistakes are okay because you can learn from them. But if you continue to repeat them then you’re self-loathing… and you have deeper issues. See a psych. Urgently.
Growing up, I was a “latchkey kid”—home alone a lot. My parents, though divorced, were involved, especially my mom.This taught me early on to be independent, and to a certain extent, to experiment making mistakes. To some degree, it was helpful because I had the courage to try new things and fail. But there were times that this definitely went too far. It also showed me how easy it is to jump to solutions and quickly try to solve my own problems with the reason of a child.
Like parents trying different discipline methods, we often fixate on what might work, not what is the problem. Which is interesting as I think about it. we are geared towards solutions more than problems and this is something that forces us to make misguided decisions that could have a long-run impact. Well, long run when it’s about kids, but short lived in school or work since most mistakes are drowned out by the next news headline.
We often focus more on the solution rather than the problem.
I once quit a job too soon, convinced I had the perfect solution for e-commerce analytics. I was so confident that the tools I was equipped with was exactly what a business needed. Turns out, my real problem was client acquisition, not the tech itself. This is a classic mistake. I couldn’t solve my own issue and I was so certain that my solution was exactly what small businesses needed. Unequipped to afford a data scientist and less to understand what it is they even do, why would they ever hire a data specialist or any one technical unless it’s for operations? Isn’t it overkill.
Yes. But I wasn’t thinking this.
I got excited about how I was smart enough to solve most e-commerce challenges and issues a small business might face with ease. But I couldn’t relate to the customer and understand how they could immediately understand and derive value from a service I could offer.
Like any new found possibility, I was so fixated on the shiny object and possible solution for others. But I forgot to dig deep into the actual pain points (problems).
In my career, I’ve built apps that ended up unused. Why? I was building solutions people said they wanted, not solving problems they actually had. This is crucial. This has been a recurring theme and a lesson I have been forced to learn and relearn time and time again.
Here’s the typical flow of my professional experience:
When in reality, your job in life around mistakes and learning from experiments is to find out what they really want. AND THEY NEVER ACTUALLY TELL YOU WHAT THEY NEED. It’s teased out like the string in your favourite sweater that the washer helped swallow into the hoodie.
You have to ask very basic questions and avoid mentioning a solution because people don’t know how to solve their problems. But the more mistakes you make, the quicker you are to solve problems so when new ones are presented, you’re flexible enough to resolve them quickly. Without much effort too.
My biggest successes came when I focused on real, painful problems. It’s about freeing up people’s time, making their lives easier. That’s where real money makers, bang out solutions happen. Solutions are everywhere; usable solutions are rare.
Don’t just build; solve.
It’s tempting to chase the latest solution, but true success comes from understanding and solving real problems. Like today, there’s such an appetite for ridiculous AI solutions that really just become a Ferrari in some circumstances when people need to just walk a block to the bus station. Help them get their shoes on instead of recommending they like 10km of rail to help them in the long run. Problem hunting makes you a problem solver instead of just some solutions provider.