The Beauty of a Slightly Different Approach

Have you ever heard of the obsessive NASA inventors who spent years refining a pen design that could write in space? The story goes that the Soviets beat them to it by using a pencil. It turns out the story didn't exactly happen that way. But it exemplifies perfectly the adage, "work smarter, not harder."

Another example of this idea comes from Jonathan Tan and Roger Basu of Coreshell, a micro-enterprise approaching battery power from a slightly different angle. While millions of dollars and thousands of scientists and investors are devoted to building a better battery for the upcoming transition to fully electric vehicles, these entrepreneurs decided to skip reinventing the wheel. Instead, they are developing a nanolayer coating technology that can prolong and extend the life of any existing battery.

This "working smarter, not harder" mentality is a tenet of the Lean Startup methodology. So ask yourselves today and everyday: how can I simplify the solution to one of my problems?