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EntrepreneurshipJeetu Patel

Pick Hard Problems to Attract the Best Team

Hard, important problems attract the best people — and business is a team sport.

Difficulty
Moderate
Time to result
~ongoing to results
Steps
4
Confidence
88%

A career and venture-selection heuristic that inverts the instinct to pick easy wins. Harder problems have a higher likelihood of success because they attract better people, and since business is a team sport, the best team exponentially raises your odds. Paired with a second filter: pursue what you're intrinsically hungry about, because hunger can't be taught.

Origin

Jeetu Patel's advice to people outside Silicon Valley, drawn from his own path from Bombay and a Sizzler steakhouse job to running product at a 90,000-person company.

Core principles

  • 01Harder problems have a higher likelihood of success because they attract better people.
  • 02Business is a team sport — the quality of your team is the dominant lever.
  • 03The platform you choose and the quality of problems you pick largely determine your path.
  • 04You can teach smarts via curiosity and persistence, but you cannot teach hunger.
  • 05Expect ~30% of any job to be work you hate; endure it in service of a mission you're hungry for.
  • 06Luck matters, but prepare obsessively so you can capitalize when it appears.

How to run it

  1. 1

    Choose a hard, important problem

    Deliberately pick a problem hard and important enough to attract the best people, rather than an easy one.

    Pro tip You don't get the best team attracted to a lemonade stand — pick the problem that pulls talent toward you.

    Watch out Easy problems attract weaker teams, which lowers your odds despite feeling safer.

  2. 2

    Let the problem recruit your team

    Use the difficulty and importance of the problem as a magnet; when the best team assembles, your odds of winning rise exponentially.

    Watch out Treating team-building as separate from problem-selection wastes the strongest recruiting lever you have.

  3. 3

    Filter by intrinsic hunger, not passion

    Choose an area you're genuinely hungry about — distinct from passion — because hunger is what gets you in every day through the parts you hate.

    Pro tip Accept the formula that ~30% of the work will be stuff you hate; hunger for the mission makes that expenditure worth it.

    Watch out You can learn skills and even 'become smart,' but you cannot manufacture hunger — don't pick a field you're not hungry for.

  4. 4

    Seek the platform and prepare for luck

    Intentionally seek out platforms that give you a springboard, and be obsessively prepared so you capitalize when luck presents itself.

    Pro tip Patel intentionally sought the platforms of America, education, tech, and great mentors — compounding value — rather than going lone-wolf.

    Watch out Attributing all success to your own abilities ignores luck and platform; the Taj Mahal guide fluent in 12+ languages earned $10 a day for lack of a platform.

In the wild

The multilingual Taj Mahal guide

On a 2017 trip, Patel met a tour guide, Raj, who spoke 12-14 languages and learned a new one yearly to honor visitors — as smart as anyone on Patel's exec team, yet earning $10 a day.

→ The difference was access to a platform, not ability — proof that platform choice, not raw talent alone, gates success.

Common mistakes

Picking an easy problem to feel safe

Easy problems attract mediocre teams; since business is a team sport, the weaker team actually lowers your odds of winning despite the lower apparent risk.

Pursuing a field you're not hungry for

You can learn skills and become smart, but hunger is unteachable — without it you won't have the stamina to endure the ~30% of work everyone hates.

Is it for you?

Best for

Ambitious people early in their careers, especially those far from established hubs, choosing what problem or platform to commit to.

Not ideal for

People needing immediate, low-risk income who cannot afford the longer odds and delayed payoff of a hard problem.

From the transcript

“harder problems have a higher likelihood of success because the harder problems are the ones that attract better people to that problem. And business is…”

1:04:00

“you don't get the best team attracted to you to start up a lemonade stand.”

“I don't think you can learn hunger, but you can't teach hunger. So find what you're intrinsically hungry about”

1:05:00

“when luck does present itself, be extremely prepared to capitalize on it and make sure that you pick the platform that can actually give you…”

1:07:30

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