One mistake I’ve made many times—one that never led to building something people wanted—was overcomplicating my thinking about the product.
Nearly all ideas that succeed and evolve into significant companies are obvious in hindsight.
ChatGPT seems like an obvious idea when you consider large language models.
Uber is an obvious idea when you think about smartphones and the broken process of hailing taxis.
Slack is an obvious idea when you look for a better way to communicate internally than email.
They may not have seemed obvious when first conceived, but once their initial versions were built, their value became clear. That’s exactly what you need to do as a founder.
Tinker with existing technologies and painful problems people face, then build the obvious solution using the tools available today.
This approach might not invent the next generation of technology, but it does create products people actually want—products that can become viable companies. And the quality of your execution determines your level of success.
Building obvious ideas—simple to understand and specific in their purpose—is the way to go.