A lot of high-level entrepreneurs suggest trying to solve really big problems.
Let's talk about how this compares to handling smaller problems which have a clearer path to a solution and financial independence.
It appears that to solve a big problem, you need a co-founding team and venture capital backing which leave you with very little control. On the contrary, small businesses don't need cofounders and often don't need additional employees except only to scale. In the first case, you are a small albeit important part of a systematic effort to solve this problem. In the latter case, you have 100% control and complete responsibility for success or failure.
Furthermore, it is quite common for efforts to tackle big problems to fail spectacularly after several years, leaving you with nothing. On the contrary, small businesses can fail quickly, allowing you time to pivot or move on.
From just these, would it be reasonable to assume that a scalable solution to a smaller problem is a more probable way to achieve financial freedom?
Now the complicated part: What if solving a big problem is really exciting and motivating for you, but creating a solution for a problem that you don't really care about isn't?
I'd love to get some more opinions on this subject. Of course, there is an ultimate benefit for me as it will help me address a dilemma.
For reasons of analogy, let's assume that we would be interested to undertake an effort for a new cancer drug, versus creating a new SaaS app to solve a scheduling problem.
What are your thoughts on this and what some other differences you see between the two ventures?
Let's talk about how this compares to handling smaller problems which have a clearer path to a solution and financial independence.
It appears that to solve a big problem, you need a co-founding team and venture capital backing which leave you with very little control. On the contrary, small businesses don't need cofounders and often don't need additional employees except only to scale. In the first case, you are a small albeit important part of a systematic effort to solve this problem. In the latter case, you have 100% control and complete responsibility for success or failure.
Furthermore, it is quite common for efforts to tackle big problems to fail spectacularly after several years, leaving you with nothing. On the contrary, small businesses can fail quickly, allowing you time to pivot or move on.
From just these, would it be reasonable to assume that a scalable solution to a smaller problem is a more probable way to achieve financial freedom?
Now the complicated part: What if solving a big problem is really exciting and motivating for you, but creating a solution for a problem that you don't really care about isn't?
I'd love to get some more opinions on this subject. Of course, there is an ultimate benefit for me as it will help me address a dilemma.
For reasons of analogy, let's assume that we would be interested to undertake an effort for a new cancer drug, versus creating a new SaaS app to solve a scheduling problem.
What are your thoughts on this and what some other differences you see between the two ventures?
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