(Image credit: AFP via @daylife)
I had lunch the other day with an aspiring collegiate entrepreneur. She’s incredibly intelligent and driven, one of those people you meet and know is going places. She told me that she desperately wanted to start a business, but wasn’t really an “idea person.”
Baffled, I asked her what she meant. She said, “I feel like I’m really good at execution, but I just don’t have any ideas. I just need to find someone who can supply the ideas, and then I can make them happen.” I looked up and said rather firmly, “That’s bullshit,” which clearly startled her.
I couldn’t believe what I had just heard. I’ve seen her work. She’s focused, thoughtful, and extremely perceptive. How could she not have any problems she wanted to solve? Then, it dawned on me. After an entire collegiate career with entrepreneurship in the curriculum and attendance at over 30 startup events, she knew all the buzzwords, but she didn’t understand the most basic essence.
I said, “Starting is simply about seeing a problem in your life and trying to fix it. If you figure it out, then you can consider doing it for others who have a similar problem. That’s it.”
She looked up as if I had just given her the location to Atlantis (no, not the Bahamian resort). She immediately started scribbling in her notebook. She then said, “That makes complete sense. No one has ever described it that way.”
This experience really opened my eyes to the perils of how complicated startup advice can get. Perhaps all the talk of customer development, lean startups, crowdsourcing, and the myriad bits of startup lingo has obscured the simplest truth: Starting is about problem-identifying and problem-solving. The business model, customer acquisition strategy, and company structure come later.
If you find yourself sitting in a similar chair, start here: What pisses you off? What frustrates you? What are you missing? Instead of writing down your ideas, start first by writing down your problems. Every business is developed because its founder saw a need for a product or service. By focusing in on problems, you’re simply reversing the process and isolating the problems that require a product or service.
It’s really that easy. You don’t have to be an “idea person.” You just have to be a problem solver.
Brent Beshore is the founder and CEO of adventur.es (#28 on 2011 Inc. 500), which identifies problems to tackle and looks for those who share their passion to create change. He is also a venture partner at Gen Y Capital, a regular contributor to Forbes, Huffington Post, and Washington Post, and a runner-up in the 2011 VH1 Do Something Awards (lost to Lady Gaga) for his work in helping his hometown of Joplin, MO recover from the devastating tornado. Connect with Brent on Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+.
