Don't Shy Away From Problems

The life-blood of every successful entrepreneur is a problem.

Because those problems that can be figured out and solved provide wealth-building opportunities for entrepreneurs. Successful businesses are built on solving a problem. The bigger the problem, the bigger the business opportunity.

Most of us do our best to avoid problems. Follow the tried-and-tested path and if we find a problem, reverse and try another (trusted) way or try to go over, under or around the problem. Problems are...well...just a problem. We don't generally like them.

Yet every successful business seeks to solve a problem. I can't bake bread daily (if only I had the time and skill!) so the baker solves that problem for me. I'm not very good at generating electricity (!), so the electricity supplier feeds it straight into my house etc. You get the gist.

But still, there are new problems emerging every day. At home and at work. We experience them probably on a daily basis. They often just niggles that we learn to live with. We mutter "it's always been like this.....it's just the way it is". That is until an entrepreneur takes an interest...

The entrepreneur starts by digging deep to figure out the nature of the problem and then seeks to build a solution that solves the problem. How much would the long-suffering potential customer pay for the solution? Well, that depends on the value of getting rid of the problem. The cost/benefit of seeing it solved.

The real opportunity for entrepreneurs is a problem that, if solved, can be scaled.

So one person with a low-level problem (ie wouldn't pay much to see it solved) is not the seed for a great entrepreneurial business BUT a problem that is troubling hundreds or thousands (or millions) of people has the potential to scale. Solve it once, then roll the solution out to the rest. And if the solution is a big-ticket, high-value problem-solver - even better. Ka-ching!

So as an entrepreneur we must not shy away from problems but see them for the wealth-building potential that they are.

Go seek, go build, go solve!