『Speed Puzzling, Midlife Pivots, and the Case for Dumb Solutions』のカバーアート

Speed Puzzling, Midlife Pivots, and the Case for Dumb Solutions

Speed Puzzling, Midlife Pivots, and the Case for Dumb Solutions

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 The Experience Strategy Podcast | theexperiencestrategist.substack.com We rarely bring guests onto the show. But when Dave heard Jarrett King's story — a layoff, a national speed puzzling competition, and a new puzzle company built from scratch in 90 days — he knew the audience needed to hear it. This episode is part entrepreneurship story, part experience strategy case study, and part argument for why the most human solutions might be the ones with no intelligence in them at all. What's in This Episode Who is Jarrett King? A marketer and designer with a long corporate career who, after a role elimination in December 2024, found herself with open time and an old passion: jigsaw puzzles. She'd been puzzling since age five — her grandmother's kitchen table, beach vacations, COVID lockdowns. What she didn't know existed was competitive speed puzzling. How speed puzzling works. The USA Jigsaw Puzzling Association governs competitive speed puzzling and puts on a national championship. Pairs have one hour and fifteen minutes to complete a 500-piece puzzle. Solo competitors get an hour and a half. There are heats, state championships, and a national event — held in Atlanta, both last year and again this coming March. Jarrett found out about the organization in October 2024, went through a layoff six weeks later, and spent her holiday downtime doing what felt natural: training. The 90-day sprint. Starting January 1st — literally on New Year's Day, spreadsheet open, puzzle boxes open — Jarrett and her co-founder went from zero speed puzzling experience to competing at the Georgia State Championship in February. They finished in one hour and thirteen minutes, just under the wire. Two minutes to spare, next to a Delta Airlines corporate team. They were near last. They were thrilled. A month later at nationals, they didn't finish in time — but neither did 67 of the other 200 teams. And that failure launched the company. The puzzle design question that started a business. When you DNF at nationals because the puzzle was particularly hard, and you're a marketer and designer by training, you start asking: what actually makes a good puzzle? Not good for casual solving — good for competitive speed puzzling, where you're spending so much time with the art that the distinctions between pieces become critical. Jarrett's framework: color palette range (too many colors or too few both create different challenges), line clarity (hand-drawn thick lines versus blurry or muddy edges), and pattern and texture variation within similar color zones. What emerged was a product company built around getting these things right. No AI art. Ever. Borderline Obsessive Puzzles has made a public pledge: no AI-generated art in their puzzles. Their mission is to feature the work of human artists and creatives — and to support the artisans behind the physical product too, including the craftsman who hand-bent every piece of metal in the die that will cut their puzzles. Jarrett watched him work in person. The guy has spent decades learning that craft. That's what's behind the physical object. Why this is a perfect dumb solution — in the best sense. Dave brings it back to the framework from Human Context: puzzles are a dumb solution. No intelligence. No data layer. No sense-and-respond loop. And right now, that's a feature, not a limitation. There's a growing consumer release happening — a desire to set the screen down, engage differently, and experience something that is purely, beautifully human. Jarrett sees it in the speed puzzling community: Gen Z participants who are vocal about AI fatigue, gravitating toward analog activities that open creative pathways. The same reason companies used to bring fidget toys into brainstorming sessions — puzzles open neural firing that doesn't happen in front of a screen. Accumulated knowledge, applied in new directions. Aransas connects Jarrett's story to the research she's been conducting for Courage Capital — 200+ interviews with women who've made significant midlife pivots. The consistent pattern: they're not starting from scratch, they're applying decades of accumulated expertise in new domains. Jarrett brings design sensibility, marketing instincts, and consumer research habits to a product category where most competitors are just enthusiasts. That combination is hard to replicate. The fundamentals don't change. As Jarrett puts it: whether it's a digital solution or an analog one, the fundamentals are the same. Put the human at the center, and you get a better outcome. Dave's book was written with AI-powered companies as the primary audience — and here's a puzzle company with no technology at all demonstrating the same principle. About Borderline Obsessive Puzzles Jarrett and her co-founder are building a puzzle company grounded in thoughtful design, human-made art, and competitive-grade quality. Kickstarter campaign (live through November 18): kickstarter.com/projects/...
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