How to turn a pain point into a business

Originally posted on https://medium.com/venture-forward/how-to-turn-a-pain-point-into-a-business-ebeb601747d9

We can all spot successful startups turned into enterprises, but where do these businesses come from? Having an entrepreneur and an innovation coming together into a business is the key to creating a startup. Here’s an excerpt from my book around the entrepreneurial process:

Entrepreneurs are not normal. By definition, “an entrepreneur is a person who organizes and operates a business or businesses, taking on greater than normal financial risks in order to do so.” Where do entrepreneurs stand out from the crowd and how can you embrace your own Eureka moments?

Scenario 1: Mary is a graphic artist who loves to express her work visually and build brands. She took a stable job two years ago to run social media marketing efforts at a late-stage startup. She enjoys her content creation pieces but hates the majority of her work which revolves around data entry, analytics and mundane tasks of copying and pasting different posts to each channel and moderating the users. What does Mary do about it?

The normal response: Do nothing, stick it out. After all, only 45% of Americans actually like their jobs so at least Mary is ahead with liking part of her job. Work is work for a reason, it's not supposed to be enjoyable. And plus, Mary and her friends meet up after work every Thursday night at The Watering Hole to talk about the terrible week at work over a handful of Gin and Tonics.

But Mary isn’t normal; she is an entrepreneur. She joins forums and communities of other social media marketers and finds that others share the same frustrations. Where her colleagues see this as just part of the job, Mary wonders, “What if there was a way to automate all of the boring tasks so that we can get back to creating content?” While others just dream of solutions to their everyday problems in work and life, Mary is an entrepreneur and takes action. She develops a vision, continues interviewing others in her position, and connects with an old friend who works as a developer and is eager to come on board. Before she knows it, Mary has a startup and jumps in with both feet to take the venture forward.

Scenario 2: Frank is a diehard New England Patriots fan, has season tickets and goes to every home game that the team has. One day after looking up Tom Brady’s statistics from the last game, he “randomly” sees a Facebook advertisement about custom T-shirts with a goat on the front and the G.O.A.T (Greatest of All Time AKA Tom Brady) on the back. He buys one to wear it to the next game and everyone around him loves it and asks where they can get one.

The normal response would be to take the compliment in stride and give everyone the website link to order their own. But Frank has a Eureka moment and sees a new opportunity. He marks down the sizes of everyone interested in his phone and after the game bulk orders 100 shirts for the next week. He gets to the parking lot early next time, sells the shirts at a premium and makes an instant profit, selling out by the first quarter.

Eureka moments can come in any shape or size and at any moment. Entrepreneurs recognize these moments and seize the opportunity to take a risk and make something happen. As we will learn later on, startups can change and pivot and scale along the way with a variety of pathways, but they all start from a vision and a belief that the entrepreneur can build something new that will make a difference in their lives and the lives of those around them.

In this article series, I share excerpts and stories from my book, Venture Forward: Lessons from Leaders. I hope you enjoyed this post — if you enjoyed it and want to connect you can reach me here via email at [email protected] or connect with me on social: Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram or Twitter. Also, you can also find my book on Amazon — here is the link to buy it: https://www.amazon.com/Venture-Forward-Lessons-Jason-Kraus-ebook/dp/B07ZLGGT6L

If you’re interested in learning more about the ideation process, you’ll love Chapter 1 of Venture Forward where I discuss it further.