What problem should I solve? - A paradoxical question!

[NervesOfSteel]

I often find people discussing about 2 popular questions on this forum!

1. “What problem do I solve?”
2. “What value can I provide?”

Though I firmly believe that none of the products can survive the market without providing value / solving a problem of the user, these two questions are poor starting points, in my humble opinion, if one wants to start a business/enterprise!

Why?

If I start with the thought process -> “What problem do I solve?” … it throws me on a journey to “find” problems … and then it initiates an infinite loop:

To figure out a problem in a given industry, that matters, you Must have experience in that industry to begin with!

To solve the given problem, you need the specific skills required to develop that solution into a product and then sell it at the most suitable price point.

In addition to this, you would also need to have the understanding to process the fact that some people would have tried to solve the problem in the past and you will need the research capability to figure out where did they go wrong?

If I follow that mindset, it's too draining, especially if I think from a raw, first-time entrepreneur POV.

So?

What am I here for? To cuss this mindset? F*ck NO!

The purpose of this thread is to put forward a different mindset, in the hope, it would help someone, with a hunger for fast money!



Mindset:

“What can I sell?”

“Sales” as a starting point, usually weeds away the wannabe entrepreneurs!

If you went smoothly through the first filter, then you have a catalog of literally infinite products that humans buy every day.

But, wait, before you make a sale, you need a product!

Now you scan all the potential hot-selling cakes with these 3 filters:

1. What I can sell?
2. What I can make/ Procure?
3. Which product justifies 1 & 2 and leaves me at least 100% profit margin if I make/ Procure?

Then you will stop looking for problems to solve (because others have solved these for you and that’s why they have sales) and start looking for the gap in the competition with exceptional margins to exploit!

I think it's getting a bit complicated, and an example, a true incident, would help you understand a bit better, whatever assumptions I claim!


In the year 2008, I was laid off for 6 months from my job - Thank you Americans for the Lehman Crisis! And I was looking for something I could sell as the job market had evaporated in the flash of flashes. I was also searching for a mobile stand, the cheapest one, that would do the job for a 3rd world freshly graduated engineer and I found a wooden one, simplest and “my problem solving”, listed at $2.99 ← lowest available price on eBay.mycountry and also on freshly launched Amazon.mycountry!

It was a simple rectangular piece of wood, with just a slot cut out, polished, laser engraved, and coated with matte varnish!

F*ck! I can make one for free!

Holy F*ck! I can make 100s for less than a dollar!

I did smell money like a hungry shark can smell blood!

I didn’t sleep that night. I watched woodworking videos on YouTube till it was dawn!

The next morning, I got a big piece of lumber for free from my neighbor. Bought a wood chopper and a wood planner - both used pieces of equipment for less than $50!

My garage spewed wood dust for a whole weekend and made 200 good-looking pieces that worked like a charm!

Convinced a local photographer to click 4 good-looking pics for free and I was listed on eBay!

Zero sales for a week!

I packed some 100 pieces in a cardboard box and drove around the city, approaching every cell phone outlet that would be willing to buy my product at $1.5 each.

Sales on 1st day = 10 pieces!
And sales grew from there.

in less than 2 months I had hired a jobless carpenter and he made some 10000 pieces from all the scrapwood that I could acquire from local door manufacturers!

The cost was 20 cents a piece. I re-listed on eBay with a strategy to be on the top 3 of “lowest price filter search results.

In the next year, I sold over 200,000 pieces till competition kicked in, and smarter people started competing with my product with molded plastic ones!

Then, I exited, with enough capital to set up my dream manufacturing unit!


I still have not found the most crucial problem that I could solve to provide value to people and therefore never built a business around it, but I have always thought about:

1. What Can I sell?
2. Can I make it/procure it with enough margin gap?

I have always focused on: Doing what I can, with what I have and always been building upon that.

So, this is the mindset that I started from. I hope someone might find it useful and probably find absolution like I did during the darkest days!


Cheers!

Feel free to hate me! All hatred is welcome!

 

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[Absar]

I really needed this

this week I've been researching on exporting products from India,
basically the city I live in is kind of a hub of wooden handicrafts in northern India, I see factories, small manufucturing businesses everywhere.

also my uncle has a job in a export firm, they export kitchen utensils and christmas decoration items to mainly Germany and USA, there are a ton of people I know who are into this who are my relatives and neighbours.

I read some reports on export promotion council's website and found out that eco-friendly products like wooden toys, kitchen utensils, etc are in great demand.


USA, Germany, Netherlands, France, and UK are the main importers of woodware from India according to the report.

my plan is to get the products made from the local manufacturers in my city and approach wholesalers, retailers or businesses and convince them to let me send samples to them and eventually get an order from them.

but I think it's simple, not easy.
there are literally countless of small businesses doing the same thing, so there's competition too.
but from my pov, businesses here are not innovative, they're selling the same products from ages.
If I do proper market research, I can find a product which has low competition and demand.

people go in trade fairs which happen once in a year [Frankfurt fairs, Delhi fairs, etc] and get buyers from there. I don't have that much money to go in trade fairs. I live on ₹3000/m pocket money from my parents.
so I will have to find buyers online by cold outreach.

Another thing, I'm 16 and can't register a firm in India legally. nor do the other document shit required.
Only way to tackle this problem is to convince my dad to let me do this and do the document work on my behalf. and I will have to get initial funds from him too.

honestly I am overwhelmed by all this.
I see you are in manufacturing,
Can you somehow please give me some guidance? what should I do?
Should I do something else to get some money first and wait till I turn 18?
I know it's not worth your time but I will be grateful

Thanks.

 

[NervesOfSteel]

I really needed this

this week I've been researching on exporting products from India,
basically the city I live in is kind of a hub of wooden handicrafts in northern India, I see factories, small manufucturing businesses everywhere.

also my uncle has a job in a export firm, they export kitchen utensils and christmas decoration items to mainly Germany and USA, there are a ton of people I know who are into this who are my relatives and neighbours.

I read some reports on export promotion council's website and found out that eco-friendly products like wooden toys, kitchen utensils, etc are in great demand.

View attachment 55763
USA, Germany, Netherlands, France, and UK are the main importers of woodware from India according to the report.

my plan is to get the products made from the local manufacturers in my city and approach wholesalers, retailers or businesses and convince them to let me send samples to them and eventually get an order from them.

but I think it's simple, not easy.
there are literally countless of small businesses doing the same thing, so there's competition too.
but from my pov, businesses here are not innovative, they're selling the same products from ages.
If I do proper market research, I can find a product which has low competition and demand.

people go in trade fairs which happen once in a year [Frankfurt fairs, Delhi fairs, etc] and get buyers from there. I don't have that much money to go in trade fairs. I live on ₹3000/m pocket money from my parents.
so I will have to find buyers online by cold outreach.

In my opinion, exporting outside your country is a slightly complicated process. The norms laid down by the government, the paperwork, and the quotas are a few hindrances to begin with.

If you want B2C, you will need a reseller in the Western country.

Export in itself has a high entry barrier!

It can be done, but you must be willing to roll over your sleeves and be prepared to steamroll all the hurdles in your path!

Another thing, I'm 16 and can't register a firm in India legally. nor do the other document shit required.
Only way to tackle this problem is to convince my dad to let me do this and do the document work on my behalf. and I will have to get initial funds from him too.

honestly I am overwhelmed by all this.
I see you are in manufacturing,
Can you somehow please give me some guidance? what should I do?
Should I do something else to get some money first and wait till I turn 18?
I know it's not worth your time but I will be grateful

Thanks.

Time is the most valuable entity in the cosmos, and 16 is the ripe age to start.

 

[Antifragile]

I often find people discussing about 2 popular questions on this forum!

1. “What problem do I solve?”
2. “What value can I provide?”

Though I firmly believe that none of the products can survive the market without providing value / solving a problem of the user, these two questions are poor starting points, in my humble opinion, if one wants to start a business/enterprise!

Why?

If I start with the thought process -> “What problem do I solve?” … it throws me on a journey to “find” problems … and then it initiates an infinite loop:

To figure out a problem in a given industry, that matters, you Must have experience in that industry to begin with!

To solve the given problem, you need the specific skills required to develop that solution into a product and then sell it at the most suitable price point.

In addition to this, you would also need to have the understanding to process the fact that some people would have tried to solve the problem in the past and you will need the research capability to figure out where did they go wrong?

If I follow that mindset, it's too draining, especially if I think from a raw, first-time entrepreneur POV.

So?

What am I here for? To cuss this mindset? F*ck NO!

The purpose of this thread is to put forward a different mindset, in the hope, it would help someone, with a hunger for fast money!



Mindset:

“What can I sell?”

“Sales” as a starting point, usually weeds away the wannabe entrepreneurs!

If you went smoothly through the first filter, then you have a catalog of literally infinite products that humans buy every day.

But, wait, before you make a sale, you need a product!

Now you scan all the potential hot-selling cakes with these 3 filters:

1. What I can sell?
2. What I can make/ Procure?
3. Which product justifies 1 & 2 and leaves me at least 100% profit margin if I make/ Procure?

Then you will stop looking for problems to solve (because others have solved these for you and that’s why they have sales) and start looking for the gap in the competition with exceptional margins to exploit!

I think it's getting a bit complicated, and an example, a true incident, would help you understand a bit better, whatever assumptions I claim!


In the year 2008, I was laid off for 6 months from my job - Thank you Americans for the Lehman Crisis! And I was looking for something I could sell as the job market had evaporated in the flash of flashes. I was also searching for a mobile stand, the cheapest one, that would do the job for a 3rd world freshly graduated engineer and I found a wooden one, simplest and “my problem solving”, listed at $2.99 ← lowest available price on eBay.mycountry and also on freshly launched Amazon.mycountry!

It was a simple rectangular piece of wood, with just a slot cut out, polished, laser engraved, and coated with matte varnish!

F*ck! I can make one for free!

Holy F*ck! I can make 100s for less than a dollar!

I did smell money like a hungry shark can smell blood!

I didn’t sleep that night. I watched woodworking videos on YouTube till it was dawn!

The next morning, I got a big piece of lumber for free from my neighbor. Bought a wood chopper and a wood planner - both used pieces of equipment for less than $50!

My garage spewed wood dust for a whole weekend and made 200 good-looking pieces that worked like a charm!

Convinced a local photographer to click 4 good-looking pics for free and I was listed on eBay!

Zero sales for a week!

I packed some 100 pieces in a cardboard box and drove around the city, approaching every cell phone outlet that would be willing to buy my product at $1.5 each.

Sales on 1st day = 10 pieces!
And sales grew from there.

in less than 2 months I had hired a jobless carpenter and he made some 10000 pieces from all the scrapwood that I could acquire from local door manufacturers!

The cost was 20 cents a piece. I re-listed on eBay with a strategy to be on the top 3 of “lowest price filter search results.

In the next year, I sold over 200,000 pieces till competition kicked in, and smarter people started competing with my product with molded plastic ones!

Then, I exited, with enough capital to set up my dream manufacturing unit!


I still have not found the most crucial problem that I could solve to provide value to people and therefore never built a business around it, but I have always thought about:

1. What Can I sell?
2. Can I make it/procure it with enough margin gap?

I have always focused on: Doing what I can, with what I have and always been building upon that.

So, this is the mindset that I started from. I hope someone might find it useful and probably find absolution like I did during the darkest days!


Cheers!

Feel free to hate me! All hatred is welcome!

I wholeheartedly agree with the logic that to solve a real problem, you need to have real skills - experience!

Otherwise you are solving for artificial problems, dreaming up an infinite loop of what could be solved but YOU cannot solve. And in circles you go.

That said... heres's what I'd add.

The easiest way to make wealth is to become authentically useful. There is something that each one of us is naturally very good at and can become excellent rather quickly. Typically it is something we are doing that we are curious about, the more we learn the more we want to learn; the more we do, the more we are curious on how do it even better. We can't let it go and get to excellent very quick. It's being unique and authentic!

And it is worth it to find out who you are, so you can push for that experience. The rewards are 100x of what you can typically accomplish otherwise. And at a fraction of the time.

I've built a small, medium and large ($ figure, but low employee) businesses, and let me tell you that larger business is same difficulty as a medium just for a lot more rewards. Small business is the hardest, least rewarding because it lacked depth - meaning, there are a lot of competitors who solve similar problems and your profit margins suffer.

Anyway, great thread! GOLD for practical advice to a lot of folks who are just starting.


edit: more on finding out what to pursue long term

GOLD! - ASSERTION - MINDSET - Tell us, who are you?

There is a scene in the movie ”Anger Management” where Dave is asked a simple question: “tell us, who are you?” As you can see it evolved quickly into a comical moment where Dave flipped out. Clearly it’s not a simple question! That question is the most important one for every one of us to...

www.thefastlaneforum.com

 

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[Absar]

In my opinion, exporting outside your country is a slightly complicated process. The norms laid down by the government, the paperwork, and the quotas are a few hindrances to begin with.

If you want B2C, you will need a reseller in the Western country.

Export in itself has a high entry barrier!

It can be done, but you must be willing to roll over your sleeves and be prepared to steamroll all the hurdles in your path!



Time is the most valuable entity in the cosmos, and 16 is the ripe age to start.

Thanks for the help!

yeah you're right, export has a way higher barrier to entry than say dropshipping or something else.
The problem is that there's ton of legal documents and paperwork involved that makes it really challenging for me as a minor.

I'm considering that I should first build up some experience and save some money with the skills I have [I can code and design websites pretty good] and figure it out until I turn 18.

 

[NervesOfSteel]

Thanks for the help!

yeah you're right, export has a way higher barrier to entry than say dropshipping or something else.
The problem is that there's ton of legal documents and paperwork involved that makes it really challenging for me as a minor.

I'm considering that I should first build up some experience and save some money with the skills I have [I can code and design websites pretty good] and figure it out until I turn 18.

Try selling on Amazon.

• This can be done on a minimum budget.
• You will learn great things within your pocket-money budget.
• You will learn some serious lessons in entrepreneurship.
• You can do it as a side hustle.
• Minimum paperwork required.

Start with what you have, Sell what you can, and build upon it!

 

[Kevin88660]

I often find people discussing about 2 popular questions on this forum!

1. “What problem do I solve?”
2. “What value can I provide?”

Though I firmly believe that none of the products can survive the market without providing value / solving a problem of the user, these two questions are poor starting points, in my humble opinion, if one wants to start a business/enterprise!

Why?

If I start with the thought process -> “What problem do I solve?” … it throws me on a journey to “find” problems … and then it initiates an infinite loop:

To figure out a problem in a given industry, that matters, you Must have experience in that industry to begin with!

To solve the given problem, you need the specific skills required to develop that solution into a product and then sell it at the most suitable price point.

In addition to this, you would also need to have the understanding to process the fact that some people would have tried to solve the problem in the past and you will need the research capability to figure out where did they go wrong?

If I follow that mindset, it's too draining, especially if I think from a raw, first-time entrepreneur POV.

So?

What am I here for? To cuss this mindset? F*ck NO!

The purpose of this thread is to put forward a different mindset, in the hope, it would help someone, with a hunger for fast money!



Mindset:

“What can I sell?”

“Sales” as a starting point, usually weeds away the wannabe entrepreneurs!

If you went smoothly through the first filter, then you have a catalog of literally infinite products that humans buy every day.

But, wait, before you make a sale, you need a product!

Now you scan all the potential hot-selling cakes with these 3 filters:

1. What I can sell?
2. What I can make/ Procure?
3. Which product justifies 1 & 2 and leaves me at least 100% profit margin if I make/ Procure?

Then you will stop looking for problems to solve (because others have solved these for you and that’s why they have sales) and start looking for the gap in the competition with exceptional margins to exploit!

I think it's getting a bit complicated, and an example, a true incident, would help you understand a bit better, whatever assumptions I claim!


In the year 2008, I was laid off for 6 months from my job - Thank you Americans for the Lehman Crisis! And I was looking for something I could sell as the job market had evaporated in the flash of flashes. I was also searching for a mobile stand, the cheapest one, that would do the job for a 3rd world freshly graduated engineer and I found a wooden one, simplest and “my problem solving”, listed at $2.99 ← lowest available price on eBay.mycountry and also on freshly launched Amazon.mycountry!

It was a simple rectangular piece of wood, with just a slot cut out, polished, laser engraved, and coated with matte varnish!

F*ck! I can make one for free!

Holy F*ck! I can make 100s for less than a dollar!

I did smell money like a hungry shark can smell blood!

I didn’t sleep that night. I watched woodworking videos on YouTube till it was dawn!

The next morning, I got a big piece of lumber for free from my neighbor. Bought a wood chopper and a wood planner - both used pieces of equipment for less than $50!

My garage spewed wood dust for a whole weekend and made 200 good-looking pieces that worked like a charm!

Convinced a local photographer to click 4 good-looking pics for free and I was listed on eBay!

Zero sales for a week!

I packed some 100 pieces in a cardboard box and drove around the city, approaching every cell phone outlet that would be willing to buy my product at $1.5 each.

Sales on 1st day = 10 pieces!
And sales grew from there.

in less than 2 months I had hired a jobless carpenter and he made some 10000 pieces from all the scrapwood that I could acquire from local door manufacturers!

The cost was 20 cents a piece. I re-listed on eBay with a strategy to be on the top 3 of “lowest price filter search results.

In the next year, I sold over 200,000 pieces till competition kicked in, and smarter people started competing with my product with molded plastic ones!

Then, I exited, with enough capital to set up my dream manufacturing unit!


I still have not found the most crucial problem that I could solve to provide value to people and therefore never built a business around it, but I have always thought about:

1. What Can I sell?
2. Can I make it/procure it with enough margin gap?

I have always focused on: Doing what I can, with what I have and always been building upon that.

So, this is the mindset that I started from. I hope someone might find it useful and probably find absolution like I did during the darkest days!


Cheers!

Feel free to hate me! All hatred is welcome!

99 percent of the profitable businesses are not based on fully original ideas.

Do what others are doing, making it slightly cheaper or better or faster.

 

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