Building Products or Building Infrastructure

by Dwayne Phillips

Are we making a product or making a product that allows others to make a product. Are we making a product that will allow us to make a product, but we spend so much time on the first that we never make a product?

I see this often. People aren’t building products. Instead, they are building infrastructure so that others can build products.

Well, who are these “others?” Come on, we are using our resources to build something that might lead to something or might lead to nothing.

This happens in many fields of endeavor:

Writers: build a writer’s escape in the back yard for writing. They spend years on the building and don’t write anything during those years.

Instead, go to the public library, sit at the Internet terminal for an hour, and write using Google Docs or something. An hour a day writing produces a novel in three to six months.

Woodworkers: Build and equip a wood-working shop. They take years doing that and never work on wood — except the wood used to build the shop.

Instead, work on the kitchen table or the garage floor.

Anglers: Work work work so you can buy a fishing boat. During those years of working and saving, they never go fishing.

Instead, grab a stick, a ball of twine, and a lump of bait and go to a nearby ditch or pond.

This list could continue.

Okay, spend some energy building a product that will help produce a product, but spend most of your energy building products.