A few months ago I sat down with two business owners — separately, different companies, different industries — and asked them both the same question.
“What’s your biggest problem right now?”
Both of them said the same thing: “Communication.”
My first instinct was to nod. Communication. Classic. Every business has it. I’ve heard it a hundred times across thirty-five years of manufacturing and product development consulting.
But I’ve learned not to stop at the first answer.
So I kept asking.
What came back wasn’t “communication.” What came back was five distinct relationships, five different handoff points, across an entire product development chain. Internal team, customer, supplier, designer, toolmaker. Every stage where information moves between people. Every stage where something can get dropped, misread, delayed, or lost entirely.
That’s not a communication problem. That’s a coordination problem with five separate failure points. And each one needs a different conversation.
Most consultants would have started pitching a solution the moment they heard “communication.” I’m glad I didn’t. Because the word a business owner uses and the actual problem underneath it are rarely the same thing.
Then I made the mistake I always make.
I went and built something.
I designed software, at the minimum viable product level, to address the coordination problem I’d uncovered. I was proud of it. It was specific, it was grounded in a real problem two real people had described to me, and I was convinced it was exactly what the market needed.
Then I took it to market.
Silence.
No money. No takers. Not even a polite “not right now.”
Here’s the thing, this wasn’t the first time. I’ve done this before. Wind turbine. 3D printer. LPM software. Each time I had a real insight, a real problem, a real belief that I’d found the thing worth building. Each time I built first and asked the market second.
The pattern isn’t that I’m bad at identifying problems. I’m actually decent at that part. The pattern is that I keep falling in love with the solution before I know if anyone will pay for it.
I’m getting better at catching myself. Each time I build a little less before asking. The gap is closing. But it’s a stubborn habit.
What I changed.
The first three engagements I take on now are free.
Not because I don’t value my time. Because I’ve learned that the most dangerous moment in any consulting engagement isn’t when you don’t know enough, it’s when you think you know enough to start building.
Free means that I go in with nothing to sell. No pre-built solution looking for a problem to justify it. Just questions. Real listening. The kind of deep dig that turns “communication” into five specific handoff points — and then figures out which one is actually breaking down first.
By the time I understand the problem well enough to recommend something, I know whether AI is even the right answer. Sometimes it is. Sometimes it isn’t. But I’m not going to find out by building first.
The business owners I work with don’t pay me to bring them technology. They pay me to find the one thing worth fixing — and make sure we’re fixing the right version of it.
If you’re thinking about AI for your business.
Before you buy a tool, subscribe to a platform, or ask anyone to build you something, ask yourself the question I asked those two business owners.
“What’s my biggest problem right now?”
Then don’t stop at the first answer.
The real problem is usually one layer deeper and that’s where the work actually starts.
If this resonates, the Problem Map conversation is free for the first three businesses.
Christopher Morewood is a PMP-certified consultant with 35 years of manufacturing and product development experience. He helps small businesses find and fix the one problem AI can actually solve before anyone builds anything.
Launchpad Project Management — Kincardine, Ontario
Start with the problem. Not the technology.