As mastery increases, we tend to discount the value of capabilities that have become easy for us, forgetting that their value is determined by the difficulty they remove for others, not the difficulty they present to us. This is what I call the expertise discount.
I recently saw a young person using some software to create a music track that he was recording a song to. He was so excited by his newfound ability. He could bring a full repertoire of instruments, bass lines, percussion sounds, and even some AI-generated chorus hooks. I rolled my eyes, thinking of how simple this was and how no one would buy this. Later, I walked into the gym where I heard a popular song, and in the background of the sound was a nearly identical machine-generated soundtrack running in the background. I realized that I was falling for the expertise discount, whereas this young man was not.
We do this all the time and in nearly every area that we gain expertise. My particular field happens to be hot right now, which is fun but the hard part is that I tend to want to make it far more complicated then it needs to be. Because the baseline technologies come easy to me, I imagine in my mind that people will never buy or subscribe to what we build because of the simplicity. This is the predictable mistake that a person has when falling for the expertise discount. They say in their mind:
“Surely nobody would pay for this. It’s too simple.”
The expert will then shoot above the market. They build something technically more impressive, comprehensive, or sophisticated than the customer actually needs, while a competitor monetizes the basic capability.
We experts will shake our heads at others who monetize the simple while we struggle with building something far more complex. If you find yourself doing this then you need to realize this absolute truth: your easiest valuable skill may be your most commercially underestimated skill.
So, next time you find yourself thinking something is "too simple" to be valuable, maybe pause for a second. That feeling might just be your expertise playing tricks on you, blinding you to the very thing others are looking for. It’s a good reminder to sometimes step back and see things through fresh eyes, or even better, through the eyes of someone who hasn’t walked your path yet. That’s often where the real magic, and the real opportunity, lies.
