Find A Problem And Solve It

Find A Problem And Solve It

The evolutionary history of human civilization suggests that necessity is the mother of all inventions. Meaning, the passion to find solutions for problems pushes one to innovate. Your curiosity to simplify makes you what you are. Just look around and you will see that all successful brands of products and services are nothing but great solutions. 

Uber, the legendary multi-billion dollar car-hailing app, came into existence when founders of Travis Kalanick and Garrett Camp faced a problem in hiring a taxi in Paris. The urge to solve this problem gave birth to an idea of a taxi aggregator mobile application to enable one-click cab hiring service. The idea of Airbnb took shape because founders of the company Brain Chesky, Joe Gebbia, and Nathan Blecharczyk saw the problem of finding hotel rooms during peak season. They visualized the potential and started the home-stay booking platform, a winsome game for all.  

This problem-to-solution approach isn’t a new phenomenon. It is with humans since the beginning. The iconic Virgin Airlines is also an outcome of a problem-solution mantra. The legendary founder Richard Branson once faced a problem in finding a seat in an airline, so he started own airline with disruptive world-class services. Just ask any successful entrepreneur about the spark behind the idea and the common answer would be the observation of a problem and passion to find simple a solution. 

Yes, passion is very-very significant as this is the factor that separates an entrepreneur from an academician. It is the passion that keeps you motivated to seek a simple solution even when you are in the middle of a series of challenges. Finding and understanding a problem is important, but it is the zeal to solve it that makes you insanely great. It is the uniqueness of the problem and solution that makes it challenging because in most cases you will be walking on an unexplored path without any guide. It is more like Columbus in search of the new world. In such a scenario, it is your passion that keeps you ignited to find suitable solutions. Steve Jobs rightly said, “You’ve got to find what you love”. 

It is universally applicable to everyone, irrespective of your roles and responsibilities because it is your love for work that will keep you motivated to find the solution. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. The only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep on looking. Don’t settle. Just like all things related to heart, you will know about it when you find it. As in the case of all great relationships, your love just gets better and better as the years roll on. So, keep looking until you find it and don’t settle…

Once you notice a problem and you feel passionate enough to work on it then all you need is the dedication to work hard. This is just the beginning of a long journey towards success. So, stay on course as there is no shortcut to success. 

One mistake most of us do while solving the problem-to-solution equation is that we underestimate the challenges that might come in the way. You must have a high threshold to endure pain because things won’t always go the way you planned and it can be very painful. No risk no gain, so be ready to take calculated risks. Planning too much for the safe playing won’t help much because it kills your creative spark and you remain trapped in tradition. If you start seeing failures as stepping stones, your appetite for risks will increase dramatically.  

No matter how intense is your love for your work; you will need a team of talented professionals to help you shape ideas into reality. So, you should pay equal attention to building a team of passionate people and train them to be in-sync with your goal. If you are surrounded by talented people with a positive attitude, you will see things happening automatically. Above all, nothing but the quality of product or service will determine how big it will be in times to come. So, your problem-to-solution approach should remain focused on finding simple, contextually relevant, and market-fit solutions.  

Great, you have identified a problem and devised ways to solve it with perfection. But, that’s not all. The real greatness comes when you make yourself available to serve others. Meaning, share what you have to the world so that they could benefit from your learning and earning. Ignoring it will create emptiness and you will fall in the repetitive cycle of new goal-setting, resulting in success without joy. It is better to build this trait early on because this will help you win people’s hearts. This is the ultimate joy of meaningful life. Make your success meaningful!