Tag / solve interesting problems

by Nathan Coumbe

What does the community need?

Benjamin Franklin knew how to make things happen.

He founded the first post office in the (future) United States, its first subscription library, and even established the first fire departments and police force.

He created what eventually became the University of Pennsylvania and the nation’s first learned society (The American Philosophical Society) to promote useful knowledge for the good of the citizenry.

He was able to do this by constantly asking, “What does this community need?”

It might seem like this question is harder than ever to answer. So many of the things we need have already been created.

But even in the digital age, humans need new creations.

Maybe the community isn’t the one you live in, like it was for Franklin. Maybe it’s one you can create online.

Maybe the needs are less tangible than they were for Franklin. We have fire departments and schools, so what do we need now?

Perhaps it’s connection. Or understanding. Or a group. Perhaps it’s a new tool or process.

The needs may be less obvious than they were, but they still exist. And remember, the needs Franklin solved were probably not obvious in his time either, even if they are now in hindsight.

by Nathan Coumbe

But do people care?

One of the keys to successful businesses and fulfilling careers is solving interesting problems.

Solving problems creates value, and value creates wealth.

But there’s a catch: other people have to care about the problem you solve. And they have to care enough about it to pay for it.

One of the first problems I solved for people was based in the music world. 

I knew people wanted to learn the drums. The problem was there wasn’t an easy-to-find drum teacher in the area. 

There were scores of drummers who taught, and I was nowhere near the best one. But… no one knew how to find them. 

So my solution was simple: I made business cards and left them on the counter at my local music store. And it worked: I got a lot of inquiries and a number of students. 

Another problem I wanted to solve (which I, at least, thought was interesting), was the massive littering issue at the park near my home. 

I had the idea to buy lots of cheap garbage cans and place them all over the park. In doing so, I thought I’d make “the garbage can is too far away” excuse moot. 

But I soon realized the idea wouldn’t work for one simple reason: no one else at the park cared about littering. It was the furthest thing from their minds.

Sure, I might have been able to persuade a few people through extensive marketing efforts (maybe), but it would truly have been a lost cause.

Finding a problem to solve is the first step. Next you have to figure out if other people care about it.

by Nathan Coumbe

Choose the harder path

No original thought from me today. Instead, a piece of wisdom I came across from Paul Graham:

“Start by picking a hard problem, and then at every decision point, take the harder choice.

***

If you have two choices, choose the harder. If you’re trying to decide whether to go out running or sit home and watch TV, go running. Probably the reason this trick works so well is that when you have two choices and one is harder, the only reason you’re even considering the other is laziness. You know in the back of your mind what’s the right thing to do, and this trick merely forces you to acknowledge it.”

Choose the harder option and watch your quality of life explode.