My biggest mistake as an entrepreneur was trying to solve a problem nobody had asked me to solve.
Like most founders, I’ve made plenty of mistakes, but one stands out because of how much time and energy it cost me.
Thankfully, I encountered it early in my career and haven’t repeated it since.
It all starts with market validation, or a lack of it.
At the time, I thought we had done our homework. We understood the problem we were trying to solve. We had looked at the industry, mapped the workflows and convinced ourselves the opportunity was obvious.
We were sure we understood the pain points and knew what needed fixing. In hindsight, that was exactly the problem.
We understood the issue academically, but we never really checked whether anyone needed it solved badly enough to care.
We assumed the market would behave the way we hoped it would. It didn’t.
I fell into founder trap
The truth is that, early on, I fell into a trap many founders fall into. I thought having a good idea was the hard part. It isn’t.
Ideas are easy. Anyone can have one. The real work, the part the market actually rewards, is execution. And good execution starts long before you build anything.
It starts with making sure the problem is real and that people genuinely want it solved.
What we missed was simple: we didn’t speak to enough people. A handful of honest conversations with potential users could have saved us months of wasted time.
We spent all our energy perfecting a solution before checking whether anyone actually needed it. That was my mistake.
It was frustrating at the time, but it taught me a lesson I’ve carried with me ever since.
Research is one thing, but validation is another. Research helps you understand a problem; validation tells you whether anyone cares enough to do something about it.
And validation doesn’t come from reports or spreadsheets. It comes from talking to real people, listening and learning.
Fortunately, the tools available today make this much easier.
For all of AI’s faults, and there are many, it’s brilliant at mapping a market, identifying competitors and testing assumptions.
Much of this can now be done in days rather than months, but even with AI and other tools, nothing replaces real conversations.
If you’re building something, take the time to speak to the people you think will use it. It’s humbling, but it works.
I’ve also learned that mistakes themselves aren’t the problem. They’re part of the job.
The real problem is repeating the same mistake.
Early on, I wasted time solving a problem that didn’t need solving.
Since then, I’ve made sure to validate first and build second. That approach has saved me countless wasted months.
Advice to my younger self
If I could give my younger self one piece of advice, it would be simple: spend less time perfecting the solution and more time proving the problem is real.
It might not feel like progress in the moment, but it can save you years, and a lot of frustration.
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