Jeff Hoffman on Solving Problems People Actually Have
Jeff Hoffman has co-founded and built companies you’ve used without knowing his name, including Priceline. He’s a serial entrepreneur who’s done it over and over across completely different industries. So when I got to meet him, the question on my mind was simple: how?
His answer wasn’t about technology or funding. It was about obsessing over a real problem that real people actually have.
Start with the problem, not the product
Jeff’s point was that most failed companies fall in love with their clever idea instead of the customer’s pain. The winners start at the other end: find something that genuinely frustrates people, then build the simplest thing that makes it go away. The technology is just the means; the problem is the whole point.
That flipped a switch for me. It’s easy in IT to get excited about tools: the newest firewall, the slickest dashboard, the latest AI feature. But you don’t care about any of that. You care about your team not losing a morning to a frozen system, your data being safe, and your phones working when a customer calls. The tech only matters if it kills a real problem.
How we try to live it
- We ask what’s actually slowing your business down, before recommending anything.
- We measure success by problems that stop happening, not by gadgets installed.
- When something new comes along, like practical AI, we only bring it to you if it solves something you genuinely feel.
Meeting Jeff was a reminder that being good with technology isn’t the job. Removing your problems is the job. The technology is just how we do it.
If there’s a recurring problem in your business that technology should have solved by now, let’s talk. Book a free discovery call or call us in Houston at 281-367-8253. More about how we think is on our about page.