The Key to Entrepreneurship: Don’t Compensate for Chronic Pain

When I was in sixth grade, I had the most difficult time seeing the board. I still distinctly remember a friend asking me what time it was and me saying, I can’t tell. Sometimes I would squint to try to make out the hazy lines. Other times I would roll my index finger into a tight circle, making my own peephole camera to make far images just a smidgen clearer. But at no time did I ever think, “Hmm… this isn’t right. Why can’t I see more clearly?” I just thought that was how the world looked: blotches of color and hard to make out shapes.

Lucky for me, schools do mandatory vision testing.

The day I put on glasses for the first time, I still remember going to a park, just laying in the grass, and staring up into the trees, marveling at the fact that I could see individual leaves swaying in the wind. Before I had my glasses, treetops were just a muddled green. Now I could see every beautiful detail. I had no idea what I was missing until my eyesight was corrected.

A couple of years ago, I started rock climbing. And, because I knew that rock climbing comes with high risk of injury, I started seeing a physical therapist so that she could catch any problems early and prevent them from getting worse.

However, what my physical therapist corrected first, was not anything to do with rock climbing. Instead, she showed me how the way I’ve been sitting for years was wrong. I cocked my right shoulder way up while I was typing on my computer. As a result, my shoulders were uneven and my back was misaligned, leading to chronic lower back pain. After she worked with me, I immediately felt the difference. I now know what it feels like to have a straight spine and even shoulders. Again, I had no idea that I had been in a constant state of pain, and that my experience could be so much better.

The same thing happens in the world of software development. Many times, users don’t know that what they’re experiencing could be so much better. Instead, they’re so used to crappy interactions, that they just deal with it. I once asked a teacher who was using a product what she thought of a certain feature and she said, “It’s great! Absolutely wonderful!” Meanwhile, she was making up for things that the software was missing by putting her own time and effort into creating outside resources and systems. She couldn’t conceive of a world in which that particular feature was pain-free. Instead, she just compensated for it without recognizing that there was a problem.

One thing that sets entrepreneurs apart, I now realize, is that unlike most people, they don’t compensate for chronic pain. Instead, they recognize it, and they refuse to back away until they’ve figured out the root cause of that chronic pain and how to fix it.

Uber realized that there just had to be a better way to get cars when you needed them. Amazon realized that there just had to be a more convenient way to shop. Apple realized that touchscreen devices didn’t have to be clunky and miserable to use, but delightful to use, instead.

Where there’s pain, there’s opportunity. Where there’s opportunity, there’s innovation.

So, what’s the chronic pain in your life? And, more importantly, what are you going to do to fix it?

Originally published on DesignED in Progress, Deborah Chang’s personal blog.