In building lots of projects and working on different types of problems, I find that one thing I, and my teammates, often get away from is actually solving real problems for our customers.
Now I think this idea pertains most to enterprise products. I think that consumer-products are often an entirely different type of problem. A problem that is as much art, if not more, than it is really science.
I think the modern workplace clouds our view from what is really important. It has become increasingly challenging to filter the signal from the noise. To decide what is really important. To separate the fluff from the meat.
While I think experience is helpful, I think the biggest thing the best product people do differently is that they genuinely care about and heavily prioritize one thing:
Their customer.
It sounds easy. It sounds obvious.
But it is really hard.
I have written about this challenge many times before…but I really find it to be the existential, most important problem we have as builders and makers.
- How do we solve problems?
More specifically, and especially nowadays, I ask myself…
- How do we solve important problems?
I write this as a humble reminder to myself to constantly be looking to solve real and tangible problems. We need more of that in this world.