Entrepreneur

Every problem I built a company around, I had the problem and couldn’t find solutions.

Is there something in your life that annoys you? People are lazy, if you have any solution that makes life easier, it would sell.

My dog needs pumpkin in his meal everyday for his digestion issue. I was so tired of opening canned pumpkin, move into a container, put into the fridge, scooping it out, back to fridge, and wash the spoon, every single meal. So I created a freeze dried pumpkin for dog called Happy Olly, so no need to refrigerate, easy to use. It helps me with my life and many other people with similar problem.

Take a product or service. Simplify access to it and offer for less than other sellers.

If someone can just go on a website, select something, not pay as much as elsewhere and it arrives at their door, it’s an easy sale. All that is left is marketing.

But if someone has to call your or coordinate how to order the product and when it will arrive, never going to happen unless you own the market for that item.

Don't try to find some new thing. Find a successful product or service in a lucrative niche that you can do the same or better.

I had that problem and saw there where another business trying to solve it. Saw that there was a market and just did it better.

It's not easy to get a market to buy a solution to a problem you have to tell them they have. What is obvious is when a market is buying solutions to an already identified and accepted problem from various sellers where none stand out as a leader. THIS is an opportunity.

TL/DR: start a business that solves an existing, obvious problem and do it better than the disorganized competition.

A good lens to explore the principle of

1. Save someone time doing something ( time = money)
2. Make someone money ( give them a tool or process in making money)
3. Improve status ( make them look good to their peers or a social ladder) this isn't the easiest of the three.

Hack, test the sentiment on Twitter or forums
/ search for anyone who said the following words "I hate" - it when...or 'I wish' I could and you will find a friction so deep people are willing to tell the world about their pains x then focusing on finding a deep enough pain that has a big market size and are willing to part $ with to get a solution.

Have you seen the video posted the other day of how door dash was invented ? It was 5 guys who came together and simply asked a question. They went around asking restaurants in the Bay Area what they needed and after doing a ton of interviews over 100 they narrowed down a problem that needed solving. So it basically comes down to being open minded and letting the customer dictate the problem through the exploration phase

my vision and my sauce is starting to be more vision and faith based with consistent hard work tied to that. Not consistent hard work tied to something that's not really me. I believe elon and jeff did the same thing. They got that sauce attached to their vision and what they're doing.

Problems have a way of presenting themselves. I hated hearing this as a new entrepreneur but you can’t force it, opportunity presents itself when ready.

Good ideas are overrated.

You don’t need a good idea/ problem to solve to be a successful entrepreneur. This might sound contradictory to the entire ethos of being an entrepreneur; hear me out on this one - the ability to execute is more important than the actual idea/ problem you’re solving for.

Ask yourself these questions before you go ‘shopping’ for the next big idea;

• do you have the ‘grit’ to move forward a little at a time every day?
• can you attract/ keep bright people to your cause?
• can you navigate uncertainty without collapse/ giving up?
• are you healthy enough physically to manage the demands of being an entrepreneur?
• are you able to manage your own emotions without lashing out when things go wrong?
• are you willing to defer success now, for greater success in the future?
• can you maintain important relationships with your family and friends and devote significant time and resources to an enterprise at the same time?

And here’s the ‘big one’ to my way of thinking;

• is your personal life in a stable enough place that you can devote time and energy to a major life changing pursuit like a startup?

It’s extremely difficult to ‘entrepreneur’ your way out of a life in shambles/full of drama. Not saying it can’t be done, however starting your own business is very difficult and if your personal life is nothing but drama 24/7 it’s going to be hard to be taken seriously as a founder.

I would say focus on getting yourself in a position you could actually pursue a startup in a credible way/ get your life in order and then worry about an idea.

Better to have the wherewithal/skills/abilities first and then work on the idea. It will save you so much time/heartache in the short term.

It’s not unanimous advice. And it’s only one way to achieve success. The vast majority of successful entrepreneurs DO NOT FIND A PROBLEM etc. Instead, they simply become another market participant in an already thriving market. They become a plumber (already thousands of those), or they open a dropship store, amongst thousand’s already existing, just to name a few examples among many.

You don’t have to think up something new or unique.

We saw a distribution gap between manufacturers and online retailers like Amazon.

There are certain products which have a stupid high demand (ex: Speed Stick Deoderants) on Amazon, and there was money to be made buying said products from distirbutors at wholesale costs, prepping them, and retailing them on Amazon. (Commonly known as 3rd party sellers or Amazon FBA)

I don’t have a great answer for this other than “what problems do you/your friends and family have?”

But this might help. Look up various businesses and find out what problems those businesses solve.

Don’t overthink this part, it’s literally the easiest part. This world we live in is plagued with not only problems, but also solutions that aren’t so great and could use competition (like how banks didn’t update their websites and app until they started getting killed by fintech apps that were so much better to use)

Start talking with people. Choose something that you have skills, knowledge or experience with. People love to talk about there problems. Reach out to people on LinkedIn, visit local business, etc. During the first few meeting you will just be developing your questions.

As you conduct more customer interviews, you will gain a better understanding of the problems experienced. Once you have more than a few people talking about the same problem, this can be the opportunity you are looking for. Then the hard work starts!

It's not just a matter of "finding the problem", it's a matter of following through. Finding the problem is easy. If your life is not perfect, you can come up with a solution to your problem (at least you will have one user =) )
More often than not, we are intimidated by the size of the task and how much we have to do. Then we say "well that's too easy" or "it's already been done". Everything has already been done in Simpsons. You need to find the strength to start and see it through. You need that, not to find the "Perfect Problem" and solve it.
That's the kind of problem you can look for your whole life and find nothing

Just live life and you will experience problems. I guarantee it 💪 Now talk to other people about the problems you are facing and you might hear people say "Me too!!!!". I went to Stanford tand paid thousands to learn this lolllll

Got admitted to hospital, had surgery, and came home with a life altering change. Boom, instant invention muse. :/ 0/10 Would not recommend

Sell and ship premium mangoes. Not a complex problem to solve. Except through a very few sellers, most people do not have access to the mangoes I can provide. Indian mangoes,Thai mangoes, new varieties and classic mangoes.

Honestly, that's not good advice if you want to make money. Working class people think that money is in doing useful things. That is wrong. Real estate, investing, financial speculation, marketing, deluding and manipulating people, that's where the money is. People who actually accomplish stuff get paid shit if they get paid at all.

I’m convinced the comments are just book salesmen. Fine! I bought some books 😂😂

Well... You could try to change your perspective about "problems". The thing here is that we are often told that problems are something that drives everyone crazy, but in most cases a problem is something that you are so used to that you don't even think of it as a problem.

For example: Is it a problem to wait 3 minutes for a cup of coffee? Perhaps not. But would it be better to get your coffee with just 2 minutes of waiting? In this case we don't perceive the situation as a problem, but in contrast with a better scenario we can easily understand the first situation as a "problem" or ar leat "less better"

With find a problem and sell the solution you look out for really small problems that everyone has or enormous problems that 0.1% of people have but are willing to pay tremendous amount of money to solve it, even if they don't realize the problem.

I can give you some real life examples:

• A construction company made a mistake during the foundation process and the cost to out everything down and start again would be something around 2M. They decided to hire a specialist in the field to see what could be done. In the end the consultant gave a solution that would save months of work for just 700k. He was paid 200k for his advice.

• In my country we often see homeless people on the street with a bottle of water and soap, a sponge, and a squeegee. They wait for the traffic light to go red and go clean some car windows to get a few bucks. Dirty windows are a common and small problem.

• A home owner needs money to pay some medical bills but can't manage to find someone to buy his house and that's why he decides to ask for a real state agent to sell it for him in exchange of commission.

In general we are always solving problems and being paid for that. The description of a job is exactly what kind of problem the business already know about and are willing to pay for someone to care of it.

Of course a genius is born from time to time and his ability to track problems and find solutions is beyond our comprehension but we don't need the mind of a billionaire to earn a great living using the concept of finding problems.

Everything is a problem and nothing is a problem.

We don't necessarily need an iphone to call family and friends, but still we perceive the lack of iphone as being a problem, and that's why we buy it.

I hope it helps.

Pick a niche and ask them what they need help with. Do not guess.

I'm pretty skinny so all my dress shirts fit pretty poorly or choke me at the neck where I can't button it up all the way. traditional tailoring is expensive and time consuming so I invented a product that lets you tailor a shirt in 5 minutes for less than $5

If you are coming from poor background, you are gifted by born itself. Because you may come across lot of problem to solve.

Take one problem, find how many people could face same problem across country/globally.

If you conclude it’s country wide problem, find a solution.If not go to next one.

I am also coming from poor background like you.

My issue was always finding what I was good at or finding something to solve. It wasn’t until later that I realized I had it wrong.

I don’t need to solve anything. I need to step into something that people WANT or NEED. Identify this, and then focus on getting really good at it. You’ll become an expert and be able to get more customers.

It’s not that easy. It takes discipline over motivation, but if you’re hungry for it, you’ll get it.

It is a fallacy that all entrepreneurs need to solve unique problems. What is the unique problem Pepsi solves? You can simply replicate a successful business model in a different region. You will have more chances of success and options to exit.

Scratching your itch does indeed work.

I encountered a problem with a crypto trading bot that required spinning up a VPS, installing Java, activating the licence using Discord, and what not. Being a computer engineer, it took me more than 30 minutes. Checking their Discord, I found that many people were complaining about the installation and maintenance.

So, I built a service that automated the entire process. At its peak, it was generating around $5k-$6k in revenue with an 80% profit margin. I partnered with the company, and they later acquired my service, now offering it as part of their core services.

If you are a simple working folk, then you are already getting paid to solve problems. It also means you have at least some access to a functioning business, so you can learn about how that business operates to solve customers' problems. Additionally, you can learn about what problems typically frustrate your employer and then figure out how to solve those problems for other businesses in exchange for money.

It sounds silly, but lists work. Every hassle, every inefficiency, every "why doesn't this exist", every "there's got to be a better way" goes on the list. People turn their ingenuity (life hacks) into their products or services.

Just iterate weekly:

1. Pick problem
2. Ask people if it's a problem
3. If not, restart
4. If so, then build a feature
5. Restart with sub problem