Our startup failed because we didn’t know the difference between bad problems and good problems.

I’ve sent an email to our team today with this subject line.

It’s the name of an article I’ve recently come across – and liked.

Indeed, many startups prematurely optimize for future problems – “good problems” – that come with scale. And they never get there.

Because they don’t focus enough on the issues they need to tackle right now – “bad problems.” Like improving customer acquisition, optimizing trial user experience, finding product-market fit, funding, etc.

So my message to the team was:

In a rapidly changing market, let’s focus all our efforts on things we need to improve right now – so our startup doesn’t fail.