I have read Ryan Holiday’s The Obstacle Is the Way dozens of times, and referenced the concept in an early post. Another great moment came up when we were unable to get a discounted rate for a cloud service we need for our product solution. The rate we would pay will ultimately cost us more than we’re able to charge for it—we would end up losing money the more our customers use our product.
We can still find a way to make this fee work within our business plan, but this obstacle inspired new ideas on how we might reduce this cost.
Being forced to deal with this obstacle has opened our eyes to new opportunities around a lower quality native solution that will ultimately provide additional benefits at a lower cost.
A native solution would work without an internet connection.
While the quality of the native solution would not be as high as the cloud service, having a native solution means the customer would never have to pay more to use the product. This will increase our potential market.
With an unlimited, free option included in the product, we can better position the cloud service as a paid service with higher quality. This allows the customer to make a choice to pay more for higher quality, rather than being forced to pay for higher quality.
The Obstacle Is the Way!
