Up until today I was wasting hours upon hours of my life by doing these three things in the wrong order 👇

1. Coming up with solutions in my head.
2. Coming up with problems in my head.
3. Go to the people I’m most interested in helping and learn.

Let’s dive into how disastrous this is.

1. Solution First (don’t do it)

I wanted to come up with something bold and exciting using a tool that I knew well. I assumed this was how original ideas are born. I was dead wrong.

The most amazing ideas normally come when no one is trying to create them. They seemingly just pop into your brain.

But this isn’t what you need to start a business. These are once-in-a-lifetime sorts of things, but it’s not necessary to build a successful company.

The next process is better, but still less than ideal:

2. Problem First (don’t do it)

At least now I’m focused on the right thing. You’ll never find a solution worth using unless it solves a problem that sucks. Like actually sucks. Like people actually care sucks.

But this constrains you to either:

Come up with dumb problems (because you don’t understand the industry the problem is from).

OR

Constrain yourself to problem spaces you already know well (this is okay, but I believe it’s an unnecessary limit on your capabilities).

3. People First (much better)

Go to the people you are most interested in helping and learn.

They more than likely understand their problems better than you do at this point.

Don’t let your ego get the best of you. Again, they know better. Your goal is to be a student. Your goal is to learn.

You don’t need to straight up ask them what their problems are either. Just talk and learn about what they do. The problems exist. The problems will show up. You only need to break out of your understanding of their flow to discover not only the problems, but the solutions.

Oh, and do it a lot. And for the power move, get everyone’s contact info during the survey, so you already have a list of people you can help when you’ve finally settled on the problem statement.

Tip: follow the 10x rule and reach out to 10x more than you think you should.

Summary

This is the closest to the “holy grail” of an idea brought out of thin air. Now the environment for ideas is being artificially created.

You will have found a problem. Now put your brain to work on the solution. Read $100M offers and run through @AlexHormozi ‘s process.

I wish I’d done this before, but I’m definitely doing this now. 💪

Best of luck to you!

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