What Problems are you solving?

By Kelvin Chungu

One of an interesting facet about being a human being is this proclivity to complaints. There is always one among us. The gentleman or lady, who has a penchant for complaining about anything politics. President Lungu this or that!!! Or that someone who just can’t seem to get a good service from the waiters, while others do. We all have them around us to a certain degree of perchance, but sometimes we can’t help it, but to roll our eyes.

In my last article, I quoted Mary Carlomagno (2017) in an article ‘titled ‘What Happened when 1 didn’t complain for 30 Days’ who provided a synopsis of how to stop complaining when she wrote “Once I started complaining, I couldn’t stop: forgotten passwords, misplaced homework assignments, those widowed socks that never find a mate, to name a few. After struggling through much of this 30-day challenge, a light bulb finally went on: If I don’t start complaining, I won’t have to stop. If I moved through the perfunctory tasks of the day concentrating on finishing them quickly, I reduced the window for whining. I also found a way to manage my now-reduced urges: I replaced my complaining with something therapeutic, the music of Buddhist monks. And guess what? My day went better. I boarded the happy-mommy train and made all the usual stops, cheerleading practices, birthday parties, soccer games and Cub Scout meetings, amid the chanting of om, namaste and shanti with zero complaints. I was living in the moment.”

But that is not the point of this article, and perhaps the best way to have to say it, is that we should embrace the complainants with an eye for opportunities. This is because every major invention that has ever been made had its background in someone trying to solve a problem.

Bill Gates and his then Partner Paul Allen developed as a first product, a basic interpreter for the MITS designed microcomputer, because they understood that the price of computers were going to be dropping, such that selling software would be a profitable business targeting hobbyists and households. Looked at in hindsight, it seems like a good idea, but it did not seem that obvious then. The uptake on the basic interpreter for MITS, however enabled them ultimately to scale and to release Microsoft Windows 95 which made it easier to operate a home computer and therefore in turn redefined home computing. What is the problem they were solving? Scaling home computing?

Take another example, Jeffrey Bezos began Amazon in 1994 in a garage with an initial investment of US$40,000 and with a concept that you can buy a book from the comfort of your home, while being a part of an online community. The online community he developed enabled Amazon to include a book review section that ultimately strengthened his project and provided significant assistance to other buyers of books in real time. Because he had created an online community he was able to add movies and music in 1997 and other additional product in time to transform Amazon to an online market place. What problems was he solving?

Thomas Edison described as one of United States' greatest innovators had the habit of writing down his thoughts in notebooks, many times a day and anotated over 3,400 of the problems he had faced over his lifetime. Among the many Edison's 1,093 patents, there are well known patents such as the record player, light bulb and moving pictures. What problems was he solving in all those inventions?

In Zambia, Zambeef began in 1991 as a butchery with insignificant capital, but has grown vertically to become one of the largest agro-businesses in Zambia, slaughtering over 60,000 cattle, 26,000 pigs and 3.5 million chickens, producing 8.5 million litres of milk and harvesting 50,000 tonnes of crops every year. Zambeef began a butchery but soon enough expanded to the growing middle class community who needed small butchery shops, and also expanded along the value chain as a means to secure supplies for its shops. What problems was Zambeef solving?

The various vulnerabilities confronting the Zambian economy however stark, are the lynchpin that can engender a market led revolution. When you look a little more closely at some of these unnerving economic forecasts, what they’re really telling us about the state of the economy is far more promising. Try to sit at the airport for days and it will make you wonder; 'what it is that we are not seeing that others do'. What are the opportunities in Zambia that are seemingly hidden in plain sight? Surely, those packed flights are not just for tourists. It is therefore necessary to submit that when we hear complaints around us, these are opportunities in reverse, dressed in disguise. What problems are we solving?

The opportunities in the economy are immense, while our resilience is under stress as the economy faces various snags, the evidence of a slowdown in our economy is overstated. And so the point of this article is to encourage us to look at those complaints around us and ask a different question; what problem can I solve?