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Comment by dshanahan | Hacker News Reader

Really like this post; articulating something I experience and something I see a TON of entrepreneurs quietly struggle with.

I share your intuition that it's not entirely a machine-ready problem; productivity tools (using that term WIDELY) have certainly improved, corrected in innovative ways for all of our typical human tendencies, and in some cases work really well for "some" people.

I've been consulting lately on a project focused on providing human coaching to this specific problem for big-thinking tech entrepreneurs. Also definitely not for everyone, but after chatting with a number of investors about how they might 'enhance' their influence on their portfolio founders, this was something that always seems to be a "lightbulb". It's most surprised me that entrepreneurs themselves seem to be very much interested in the idea: "Yes, if my investors provided me with a productivity/well-being coach I'd take full advantage".

Thoughts?

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I'm far too young to be of any help demoing products for entrepreneurs. However, I think that this and other problems are near or on what I like to call the "Deviation barrier.".

Basically it goes like this: Theres certain problems that seem solvable from your perspective, but the real problem is that the way in which the problem manifests itself deviates largely enough from one person to the next that it makes any solution non-portable to someone else's instance of the problem. As computer science techniques get better I would wager that this barrier gets thinner. I know that if I spent enough time on it I could solve this problem for myself. But solving it in a way that would help others too? That's a tall order.

There's a lot of problems that right now are near or on the deviation barrier. I like to think that as that barrier hypothetically thins that computers will be able to help us with more unique aspects of our lives and account for individual quirks.

But talking right here right now; I'm not sure that you would be able to find effective productivity coaches. Feel free to prove me wrong on this.

I agree this is a problem that's near the "Deviation barrier". I also agree it's narrowing, and admit that what I was suggesting is a 'low-tech' solution. I suppose I was simply offering that I'm seeing empirical evidence that this is a pain point in a particular market that's large enough that people look willing to pay to try and fix it.

> I also agree it's narrowing, and admit that what I was suggesting is a 'low-tech' solution.

That's not in itself a reason to reject an idea. A lot of the time the best solution is decidedly "Low Tech". Thinking that added complexity has any correlation with the usefulness of a system is a fallacy.

(Example: http://thedailywtf.com/Articles/Classic-WTF-Lock-and-Key.asp...)

It's not even that your idea is bad. It's not. I'm just skeptical of the availability of individuals who can make a difference without being out of the price range of just about anything that could be defined as a "startup". In fact, I'm skeptical of the availability of such individuals at any price range.

And I'm afraid that if you're serious about the idea that the onus is on you to figure these things out and prove their worth.

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