For two years, I had been chasing the entrepreneurial dream. Customer discovery, prototypes, pitch decks—the whole shebang. I had interviewed everyone from executives to parents at youth baseball games. I even pitched Michigan’s Lieutenant Governor in a literal elevator.

It had been quite a ride. Yet there I was, without a single MVP or sale to show for it.

I had bounced around—from politics to education, education to devtools, devtools to…

Every time I switched, I’d get excited about the new thing. But then reality would hit: “Would anyone actually use this?” Or worse, “Would I even use this?”

I was stuck in a paradox: My only problem was that I didn’t have a problem worth solving.

I tried to follow that classic advice every entrepreneur swore by: “Solve your own problem.” So I’d ask myself, “What bugs me? What’s missing in my life?” But honestly, nothing came to mind. Except for the deep urge to want to build things.

Months passed. Years passed. Money ran low. Questions from family mounted. The nagging fear that I wasn’t quite serious about what I was doing grew stronger.

After all those hours working alone on my laptop, I began to wonder: what was the point of all this? Why wasn’t I feeling alive?

The Turning Point

Then something changed. A potential cofounder entered the picture.

We teamed up briefly before he decided that he was better suited for another career path—no hard feelings. But man, those few weeks we worked together were a blast. Strategizing, reaching out for customer discovery interviews, being chastised by my mentor for doing it all wrong.

Finally, I had some air in my sails. I felt like I was executing (even if it was poorly, haha).

But after we parted on good terms, and I returned to working on my own, the same pattern and doubts returned—why was I doing this? What was I building? Why couldn’t I stick to anything?

What was interesting was that nothing really changed in terms of progress. I hadn’t made much headway with the cofounder. I wasn’t making much progress without him. But I felt completely different. I felt empty and alone and strangely, like a little child who didn’t know what they were doing.

That was when it hit me: I wasn’t suffering from a lack of problems to solve. I was suffering from a lack of people to solve them with.

The Real Problem

All this time, I had been asking the wrong question. Instead of “What should I build?” I should have been asking “Who should I build with?”

I couldn’t see this pattern until I experienced the contrast. Some of the greatest moments of my life had come from building, training, and creating alongside others. There was something unparalleled that happened when great minds came together to make something new.

Unfortunately, I had held too many jobs where creativity wasn’t rewarded—it was punished. Growing up, working for someone else while exercising creativity felt oxymoronic to me.

I had also idealized the great creators like Steve Jobs, who seemed characteristically independent. They blazed their own trails, and I wanted to be just like them.

But what I didn’t see in those epic stories was the sheer loneliness of being an entrepreneur. I couldn’t have anticipated how much it would affect me.

As a solo founder, I discovered that building alone wasn’t just hard—it felt like a waste of life, especially when what you were making didn’t seem to matter.

I wasn’t an idealist who believed every startup was changing the world. Nor was I in it for the money—but the isolation was killing me.

Redefining Success

Sometimes we do things without understanding why, only connecting the dots when we look backward.

My true motivation for wanting to build wasn’t about solving problems—it was about being and connecting with other passionate creatives.

The Builder’s Paradox wasn’t about finding the perfect problem—it was about finding the perfect people.

The Real Solution

Entrepreneurship, I’ve realized, isn’t the only path to my goal—and for me right now, it’s not even the best one.

So I’m changing course. I’m excited to join other startups, contribute to their missions, and yes, get paid while doing it. Maybe someday founding my own company will make sense again. But until then, I’m focused on other things:

• Mastering my craft
• Building alongside people who inspire me
• Finding peace in the process

It’s back to basics for me—and I couldn’t be happier about it.

The Heart of the Paradox

It’s funny how the resolution to my Builder’s Paradox didn’t come from finding the perfect business idea. It came from rejecting the premise that I had to find it alone.

Sometimes the problem isn’t the problem you’re trying to solve—it’s the way you’re trying to solve it.