Entrepreneurs are often recognized for the solutions they discover and create. Steve Jobs will always be recognized for recognizing new technologies and having an image of what could be done with them. The mac, iPod and iPhone ultimately are the solutions he gave us.
However, to get there, the entrepreneur focuses on the problem. After thousands of attempts to create an electric light, people wondered why he kept trying. He was obsessed with the problem of finding the right way to make it. Thomas Edison is famous for saying that “I didn’t fail 1000 times. The light bulb was an invention with 1000 steps.” You have to be patient
Uri Levine created the traffic navigation app Waze; he eventually sold it to Alphabet for $1.15 Billion. In his book, “Fall in Love with the Fall in Love with the Problem, Not the Solution: A Handbook for Entrepreneurs”, he relates his frustration with listening to people criticizing his ideas as he worked on solving the traffic problem.
“When you have an idea for something new you think about it for a long period of time, from multiple perspectives. At some point, you feel comfortable enough to present your idea to someone else. But that person didn’t have a chance to think about it and generally their immediate response is that this won’t work.” Whether it’s a new app or a new product “in general people like their own ideas and they don’t like change so everytime you introduce something new, there’s going to be a lot of rejection.”
In other words, as you work on the problem and then work on the presentation of the solution you have or hope to achieve, expect that failure is part of the new product journey. The faster you do it, the easier it will be to go to the next steps. As long as you’re in love with the problem, and not a specific solution, you have a chance to find what you want – and reap the rewards of success.
What’s your experience? Share it with us.