There’s a certain temptation that comes with running a business today. New technology appears, everyone starts talking about it, and suddenly you wonder whether your business should use it too. Maybe it’s artificial intelligence, cryptocurrency, a new payment method, an automation platform, or one of the countless tools promising to make your business faster, easier, or more profitable.
Sometimes the answer is absolutely yes. New technology can solve real problems and create opportunities that simply weren’t available a few years ago. But before adding another tool to your business, I think there’s an important question worth asking: What problem are you actually trying to solve?
When Technology Becomes the Goal
Last year, I wrote a blog about accepting Bitcoin when it crossed $100,000 and seemed to be all anyone could talk about. As someone who holds Bitcoin, I was pretty optimistic about it myself. That conversation eventually led to something practical when I helped a client set up cryptocurrency payments on their website.
It was relatively straightforward to implement, and there are certainly businesses where accepting cryptocurrency makes sense. If your customers want to pay that way, or cryptocurrency is already an important part of your industry or audience, there can be a legitimate business reason to offer it.
But something I’ve noticed is that when clients and business owners ask me about technology like this, the question they ask isn’t always the one they’re really trying to answer.
Someone might ask, “Should I accept crypto?” But what they may actually be asking is, “Does my business look modern enough?”
That’s an important distinction, because if the goal is to make the business feel more current, adding a cryptocurrency payment option might accomplish very little if the rest of the customer experience is frustrating or outdated.
The Problem May Be Somewhere Else
Think about what happens when someone visits your website. Maybe your checkout takes six steps to complete, the site is difficult to navigate on a phone, customers have to create an account before they can purchase, or you’re not offering common payment options such as Apple Pay. Maybe the call to action isn’t clear, so visitors aren’t sure what to do next.
Those are the kinds of problems that can directly affect the customer experience, and they’re often much more important than whether or not someone can pay with Bitcoin.
That’s not an argument against cryptocurrency. It’s an argument for solving the right problem.
If you have customers asking to pay with crypto, that’s a legitimate reason to explore it. If cryptocurrency is an important part of your audience or business model, it may make perfect sense. But if the motivation is simply that “modern businesses are doing it,” I’d take a step back and look at what you’re actually hoping to accomplish.
Technology Should Support the Goal, Not Become the Goal
This applies to far more than cryptocurrency. I’ve seen businesses get excited about automation when what they really needed was a better process. I’ve seen people want a new website when what they actually needed was clearer messaging. I’ve seen businesses want to be on every social media platform before they’d even figured out where their customers were actually spending their time.
Technology can be incredibly useful, but it can also become a distraction. It’s easy to look at a new tool and think, “Maybe this is the thing that’s going to fix everything.” Usually, it isn’t.
The technology is the tool. The important part is knowing what you’re trying to accomplish with it.
Before investing time and money into something new, I think it’s worth asking a few basic questions: What problem am I trying to solve? Who is experiencing that problem? How will this improve their experience?
Will it actually help the business reach its goals? And is there a simpler way to accomplish the same thing?
Those questions can save you from spending time implementing something simply because it sounds impressive. They can also help you determine whether the technology you’ve been considering really is the right answer.
Sometimes the Simple Solution Is the Better One
One of the things I enjoy about working with websites and technology is getting to see both sides of the equation. Yes, I can help implement the technology. If you need cryptocurrency payments added to your website, an automation connected, a form built, or a new tool integrated into your existing systems, I can help with all of those.
But I don’t want to simply build whatever someone asks for without understanding why they’re asking for it.
Sometimes the best solution isn’t the one that sounds the most exciting. It might be fixing the thing that’s been frustrating your customers for the last two years, making your website easier to use on a phone, or simplifying a process that has become unnecessarily complicated. And sometimes, yes, the answer really is adding that new technology you’ve been considering.
The important thing is knowing the difference.
Ask Why Before You Ask How
Technology is changing incredibly quickly, and I don’t expect that to slow down. There will always be another platform, another tool, another payment option, and another piece of technology promising to change the way we do business.
You don’t need to chase all of them.
Instead, start with the problem. Think about what you’re trying to make better, who you’re trying to help, and what success would actually look like. Once you understand that, finding the right technology becomes a whole lot easier.
Because the goal isn’t to have the most modern business possible. It’s to have a business that works better for you and the people you serve.
And sometimes that means embracing the newest technology. Other times, it means fixing something that’s been sitting in front of you all along.