Are You Solving Your Company’s Biggest Problems?

In today’s blog post I want to talk about the importance of focusing on solving your company’s big problems before adding AI into the mix.

Everyone is talking about large language models and AI. You can go to any conference and 3/4 of the booths are AI startups and new AI tools.

Don’t get me wrong—I’m excited about AI. I am a technologist, after all!

However, as a bootstrapped entrepreneur, what I believe in most is making sure you are working on your company’s biggest problems.

Sometimes, your biggest problems can’t be solved by AI (i.e. integrating with data or being able to import and export). Yes, some AI tools can solve these problems, but it’s important to take a step back and assess whether AI is the right solution for your specific challenges. If your foundational systems and processes aren’t strong, adding AI on top of them could complicate things further rather than providing the clarity and efficiency you’re looking for.

To determine whether AI will solve your biggest problems, ask yourself these questions:

1. What specific problems am I trying to solve?
2. Which problems have the biggest impact on my business?
3. What do we want to achieve and what are the expected outcomes?

Next, if you think you’ve found an AI tool that will solve your problems, ask yourself these questions:

1. Does this make sense for my problems or is there a simpler solution?
2. Do my problems involve tasks that are repetitive, data-driven or require pattern recognition? (A big win for AI tools!)
3. Do my problems require human judgment, creativity or emotional intelligence?

Lastly, be honest and ask yourself if you’ve just fallen in love with a new shiny object and just might have a solution in search of a problem. After all, if all you have is a hammer, then everything looks like a nail!

Once you’ve answered these questions, you can explore further how bringing in AI aligns with your goals, whether your current system supports a new integration, and the costs vs. benefits, etc.

My best advice: Just because AI is new and exciting doesn’t mean it is your silver bullet. Identify your key problems, do your research and focus on your goals and objectives.

Important Question to Ask Yourself this Week:

What technology is being used at my company to solve our biggest issues? And what do we have that isn’t really that useful at all?