In Search of a Problem to Solve
No matter what business you're in, your goal should be to solve problems.
The curse of the entrepreneur is that there is always an itch to be solving problems for a target market.
There is no shortage of problems that need to be solved. The challenge is finding the problem that you, as the entrepreneur, want to be working on. A problem that will keep you motivated, let alone interested, long enough to bring a solution to market.
For me, that problem used to be helping small businesses get out from under the soul crushing weight of IRS payroll tax debt. Then I learned that I could amplify my solution to that problem by not just directly representing clients, but also by enabling other tax professionals to represent such clients. Over the course of about eight years, I trained over 20,000 CPAs, tax attorneys, and Enrolled Agents on how to do that work, and thus impacted the lives of far more tax debtors than I ever could have on my own — not to mention the lives of the tax professionals that I worked with.
For the past couple years, I’ve been volunteering extensively for a marine science center and a few other non-profit organizations. I’m helping to solve the problem of access to science education at the K-12 level, the problem of invasive plant species in riparian ecosystems, the problem of stormwater runoff pollution, and the problem of toxic shellfish poisoning, amongst many other related projects.
During the past two years, I’ve been thinking a lot about the problem of financial literacy in my local community, the state of Washington, even the entire country. Heck, it’s a global challenge, that impacts all people. Financial literacy is, as Peter Diamandis of the X-Prize Foundation calls them, a “billion-people problem”. At FinCon 2024 last week, I finally gained some traction on how to start creating impact on this front. I’ll soon be launching a community for financial coaches and financial educators to foster conversations, document best practices, and spread financial literacy to as many people as possible.
What problem are you working to solve? Leave a comment below to share with the world the big idea that you’re working on, I’d like to read it.