Finding a problem or How to find business problems and the one | Startups & Ventures

Finding a problem
or How to find business problems and the ones you have

You're going to have to brainstorm. Some people recommend that you just sit around waiting for inspiration to strike. I don't. That might take years, if not forever. Be proactive.

It's hard to say where the best place to start brainstorming is, not because there are so few, but because there are so many. There are thousands of good problems out there, and practically anything can trigger you to stumble across one.

What's more important is that you recognize a good problem when you see one, and vice versa. If a problem scores poorly on the guidelines above, don't waste your time. Keep brainstorming.

For that reason, it makes sense to start with one of these guidelines in mind, and let that be your trigger. For example, since it's helpful to solve a problem that you have yourself, why not take a look at your own life and see if you can spot any problems. What worries you, exasperates you, or annoys you?

The other guidelines also work well as brainstorming triggers. Who do you like spending time with? What groups are you a part of? What are some problems you notice people solving frequently? What's something that seems to be growing into a bigger trend?

My personal favorite is to start by looking at where people are already spending lots of time and money and go from there. Money changing hands is almost always a sign that there's a valuable problem being solved.

Avoid Fatal Mistakes

Founders typically have already made one or two huge mistakes by this point. If you can avoid these, you'll be way ahead before you've even started.

Starting with a solution in mind. I've mentioned this already, but it's worth repeating. You need to be honest with yourself here, because this is sometimes subtle. If you're already attached to a particular idea for a product, technology, or set of features that you want to build, that's going to ruin your ability to find a solid problem and analyze it objectively. You've put the solution first, and it's blinding you to opportunities.
Ruling out already-solved problems.
Nothing in the guidelines above says that a good problem is one that nobody is solving. In fact, the opposite is usually true. Almost all successful businesses start by tackling problems that have popular, pre-existing, alternative solutions. Way too many founders attempt to solve unsolved problems, then get stuck. These problems are often unsolved because they're unimportant and people don't care.

Being afraid to solve high-value problems. Indie hackers in particular are notorious for only tackling cheap, low-value problems. You don't have to sell something for cheap to have a chance at success. That's backwards. It's actually harder to sell cheap things, because people care less. I've bought more cars than back scratchers in my life. It doesn't matter that you're a small, scrappy startup. I've met 2-person teams selling their software for $10,000 per year per customer. Pick a high-value problem and charge a high price.

Not having a specific customer in mind. If you can't articulate whose problem you're solving, how is your website going to articulate it? If you want to wait and see who the best customer turns out to be, that sounds a lot like a key looking for a lock. If you think your product is for everyone, it's probably for nobody. If you describe your target customer by combining a bunch of attributes (e.g. "iOS users who need to get tasks done but prefer modern, clean UIs"), that's not an actual group of people. You're just describing the features of a product you're already biased toward building.

Some of these points are a bit counterintuitive. That's why so many generations of smart-but-uninformed indie hackers are repeating the mistakes of their predecessors.

But it's simple to avoid these kinds of mistakes once you know them. It's more a more a matter of knowledge and discipline, rather than genius or hard work.