28) Problem Solving

Behind-the-scenes building Vambrace AI, a company on a mission to figure out its mission. Please pardon the stream-of-consciousness style. Subscribe to follow along or visit the site here:

(typos are to make sure you’re paying attention)

Introductory Remarks

Dear Vambracers —

In last week’s post, Labor Productivity, I inspected the importance of labor productivity as a lagging indicator of technological process and reflected on my personal labor productivity journey. Productivity gains are a big part of the propellant substrate that animates the entrepreneurial journey—despite all the difficulties. Moving on!

Problem Solving

In today’s post, which is going to be a short one (given that we’re on the tail-end of a lovely holiday weekend), I wanted to briefly acknowledge a small shift in framing I had recently around any economic transaction (really). I met with an established and exited founder who had built something similar to what I’m trying to do here, and he described the role of a consultant / service provider as someone that gets paid to solve problems that organizations want to outsource. And for some reason this struck me in a deep way.

Common startup knowledge goes something like: “find a customer cohort you’re passionate about, observe their workflows, identify problems and bottlenecks, and then solve those problems for them, and then charge them for that solution.” I understand this general process well, but it’s always been more theoretical and software-based. I don’t think I adequately considered the human component associated with problem-solving.

Because a problem is only a problem if some human (for now) understands it to be a problem—or if they experience some adverse psychological state because of said problem. And so really when they exchange capital for a solution (be it software and/or services), yes, they’re paying you to solve that problem for them—but they’re also paying you so they can outsource the cognitive load associated with that problem. And so the role of a service-/solutions-provider is to bear the psychological burden of that problem on behalf of the client/customer—and deliver results.

This probably dovetails nicely with Jeff Bezos’ axiom about “focus on the things that make your beer taste better” and also like economic principles of comparative advantage and stuff. Because I’m being paid to bear the burden of some business-challenge, and I implicitly believe that I can both bear and overcome that burden more effectively than the business if they were left to their own devices.

But really all I’m trying to say here is that the psychological toll of bearing that burden is really what I’m selling and the service that I’m providing. It’s really, truly, deeply human—and that’s the shift in framing that deeply affected me. No matter how much we use technology or hide behind software and jargon, really building anything worth something to somebody is a deeply human exercise. And that’s much easier to appreciate when you’re actively doing it than when you’re talking about it.

Looking Forward

That’s all from me today. I told you it’d be short—and hopefully it was also sweet. I’ve already learned so much in my first ~2 months really doing this thing full-time, and I’m grateful to be doing it, and feel energized to keep bearing the burden of more problems for more people.

Have a wonderful week! I hope you had a great Thanksgiving!

Sincerely,

Luke