Find Good Problems, Not Good Solutions
Which one do you think will make you money?
- A good solution to a bad problem, or
- A bad solution to a good problem
My answer: ✅ A bad solution to a good problem
How We're Conditioned
In school, we're taught to solve problems—not to find them.
| Instead of learning to... | we were told to... |
|---|---|
| figure out what equation is worth solving | solve the equation given |
| choose a topic that matters to us | write an essay on a predefined topic |
| define what we truly want to learn | follow a fixed curriculum |
We weren’t trained to ask questions or identify meaningful problems. At least, not in my school. The problems were handed to me—I just became a highly trained monkey, skilled at solving neatly packaged, well-defined tasks.
Then comes real life.
Suddenly, we're in an unstructured world. It’s messy, complex. There are thousands of problems all around. Which should we solve? In what order? School never taught us that. It trained us to find good solutions—but it’s finding the right problem that actually matters.
If there's one thing I've learned—through life and through building a business—it’s this:
Solving a problem is relatively easy. It's finding the right problem that's hard.
Answers are everywhere. You have Google. You have ChatGPT. What matters most is asking the right question.
Employee vs Entrepreneur
As an employee—especially in an individual contributor role—your world resembles school. Your company gives you problems. You solve them.
Running a business is different. The key isn’t solving problems—it’s finding good ones.
In business, it’s better to have a bad solution in a good problem space than a perfect solution in a bad one.
- A good problem space has high demand and a large market. Even if your first solution is rough, you can improve it over time and gain traction.
- A bad problem space has low demand, a tiny market, or intense competition. You might perfect your solution—and still go nowhere.
The problem space is the limiter. Find a good one. Follow the market.
This insight had been sitting in the back of my mind for a while. But when I saw Michia Rohrssen mention it, it jolted me. I had to quickly write this down—to burn the lesson into my brain.