From Idea to Something That Works

An Endless Supply of Ideas

Ideas are a dime a dozen. I’ve had so many through the years about how to solve problems, and make money while I’m at it.

When I was a kid, I created business plans for making money by offering rides around the lake we lived on in our yellow canoe with a trolling motor. I could charge kids who went to the elementary school for rides to school in the morning. I even created business cards. But the thought of asking someone if they actually wanted a ride was terrifying, so I never did anything with it.

That was my first lesson in entrepreneurship: Ideas are easy. Asking someone if they actually want the thing you built is the hard part.

My Google Drive is full of ideas. Same with my task boards at Action and at my clients. When I scroll X, I see tons of ideas, or actual businesses. I tell myself, “I could do way better.” But I scroll on.

Agentic AI massively reduces the friction that used to exist between ideas and products. But a product isn’t a viable business, or a solution that actually solves problems. It’s another canoe ride business that only exists in fantasy land. A product is only the beginning. The real test starts when someone else tries to use it.

Leaving the Lab

How do you go from idea to product to a solution that actually helps people? Take the product out of your laboratory and show it to someone. The joy I have in solving problems for myself is that I know all of my preferences and criticisms. Taking the idea to another person opens it up to new input and criticism. It also exposes it to the reality that I don’t understand their world.

That’s uncomfortable, but it’s also an essential part of the process.

People rarely criticize something they don’t care about or aren’t interested in. Constructive criticism is often the first signal that your idea might actually matter.

What Real Users Reveal

Once you’ve shown the product to someone, let them actually start using it. You’ll be surprised by how your idea of completing a task is vastly different from theirs. There will be tons of features and steps that are superfluous.

That’s the beauty of criticism. It gets us out of our own heads and into the real world. What feels essential when you build it often turns out to be unnecessary when someone else tries using it.

Faster Feedback Loops With AI

Agentic AI makes it easier to collect this feedback, turn it into user stories, features, and, ultimately, a better product. The time gap between feedback and improvement keeps getting shorter. What once took months of iteration can now happen in days, even hours.

The Reality of AI Adoption

Contrary to what you see on social media, AI adoption is still low. The AI world is very noisy and overwhelming. Very few people have dramatically changed how they work because of AI. Most people are still experimenting. Few are actually building.

Start Building

If you want to take the leap from window-shopping AI to actually using it to solve problems, hit reply and tell me. I’ll respond to every reply.

Just commit to building.

— Shaun

Shaun Davis, your personal data therapist, understands your unique challenges and helps you navigate through the data maze. With keen insight, he discerns the signal from the noise, tenaciously finding the right solutions to guide you through the ever-growing data landscape. Shaun has partnered for 10 years with top data teams to turn their data into profitable and efficiency hunting action. Learn more about Shaun.