Image by Darlene Alderson from Pexels
You’ll thank yourself 10 years from now
We hear a lot of social media gurus say,
“Solve their problem and you’ll make money.”
Whether you do services, products, and the etc. that’s always been the secret ingredient.
But… what if we made up imaginary problems? Problems that seemed like they needed fixed, but in reality you and I never had an issue with.
I realized this when I finished designing my first product.
Wallpapers galore
Firefox browsers, your operating system, and your iPhone screen all have wallpapers.
There’s so many wallpapers to chose from in fact, that there are tons of wallpaper sites filled with both AI and human-created designs.
Back in 2022 I knew this, but I thought that I had the greatest idea on how to fix messy desktops: icon boxes.
Well, maybe that isn’t what it’s called, but they’re an easy way to categorize icons- by designing boxes ontop the wallpapers in a way that’s harmonious with the wallpaper.
Sure, I knew that wallpapers were free, but I figured that this super important problem would be worth money to fix. I just didn’t realize that… well… not many people cared.
A problem is started with your experience
For one, I’ve never really had a problem with a cluttered desktop. I mean, yes I had it out of whack once in a while, but I had folders that grouped each category that I would arrange on the desktop.
In fact, I even stopped putting my icons on the desktop because I figured out a hack in windows to simply click the super key and get a transparent background that showed my icons for me (forgot the word for it). Then when I switched to Linux, I didn’t even have icons in that special place, I just kept them in their file folders and it’s worked just fine.
While it’s an issue to have a cluttered desktop, many people don’t care to have a special wallpaper to organize them, especially if most people don’t even use their desktop as an icon storage place anymore.
As Jason Fried says in Rework,
“Sometimes abandoning what you’re working on is the right move, even if you’ve already put in a lot of effort. Don’t throw away good time after bad work.”
Takeaway
If you’re working on a product or service, think:
- Why are you doing this?
- What problem are you solving?
- Is this actually useful?
- Are you adding value?
- Will this change anything in someone’s life?
- Is there an easier way?
- What could you be doing instead?
- Is it really worth it?
After considering these questions from Rework, and you find that you’ve been working in circles — take action, you’ll be happy 10 years down the road that you got off the round-about path and onto one that really made a difference.
An imaginary product doesn’t have real-life application, like my icon boxes. But a real product makes a difference.