What’s your problem?

If I had to sum up the first week of Starter School in one sentence, that would be it: “What’s your problem?”

Our group’s problems range from big to small and cover a lot of arenas. Over the course of a week it’s been fun watching people work their way down the funnel to a focused and manageable problem. We’re learning to chisel at our ideas, breaking them down to a couple smaller problems. We’re learning what the difference is between an annoyance and a real pain; what solutions are vitamins versus pain killers.

This week when I talk about my problem I found myself prefacing it with these words: “Ok, it’s an unsexy problem, but here it is”. Then one afternoon I was talking about my idea with Mike McGee, one of the Starter School founders, and he cut me off after giving that canned line:

“I love unsexy ideas” he said. “Unsexy ideas can have sexy solutions, and they can also have sexy revenue streams”.

He’s right. There’s no need to apologize for not tackling world hunger right now. I’ve got a problem that I want solved and I’m betting other people do too. Now it’s time to break out that chisel and tackle this problem, piece by piece.