Selecting a Real Problem Worth Solving

What “a Real Problem” Means (and What It Doesn’t)

A real problem worth solving is a recurring, specific, and costly situation that a clearly defined group of people actively wants to fix. “Costly” does not only mean money. It can be time, stress, risk, lost opportunities, compliance exposure, embarrassment, physical discomfort, or operational chaos. The key is that the pain is strong enough that people will change behavior to reduce it.

Many beginner ideas fail because they start from a solution (“an app that…”) or from a vague desire (“people want to be healthier”) rather than from a concrete problem (“night-shift nurses can’t reliably get healthy meals during breaks because the cafeteria is closed and delivery is slow”). Selecting a real problem is about narrowing from broad themes to a sharp, testable statement that describes who is struggling, what they are trying to do, what blocks them, and what happens if it stays unsolved.

Signals you’re not dealing with a real problem yet

• It’s a preference, not a pain: “It would be nice if…” but people won’t change habits for it.
• It’s too broad: “Small businesses need marketing” doesn’t tell you which business, which channel, which constraint, or which outcome.
• It’s hypothetical: People say they would use it, but they can’t name the last time they felt the pain.
• It’s a one-time event: Problems that happen once a year can be valid, but they often require high urgency or high value to sustain a business.
• It’s already solved “well enough”: If the existing workaround is cheap, fast, and acceptable, your improvement must be dramatic to matter.

Criteria for “Worth Solving”: A Practical Scoring Lens

To avoid falling in love with interesting-but-weak problems, evaluate candidates using a simple set of criteria. You can score each from 1 (weak) to 5 (strong). You are not trying to be mathematically perfect; you are trying to force clarity and comparison.

1) Frequency

How often does the problem occur for the target group? Daily and weekly pains are easier to build around than quarterly annoyances. Example: “Coordinating weekly staff schedules” usually beats “filing annual paperwork” unless the annual event is extremely painful and high-stakes.

2) Intensity

How painful is it when it happens? Look for strong emotions: frustration, anxiety, fear of making a mistake, or feeling overwhelmed. Example: “I’m worried I’ll miss a compliance deadline and get fined” is more intense than “I wish this looked nicer.”

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3) Cost of Inaction

What happens if they do nothing? Lost revenue, churn, wasted labor, safety risk, reputational damage, or chronic stress all increase the cost of inaction. Example: A restaurant that can’t forecast inventory may waste food daily (direct cost) and run out of popular items (lost revenue).

4) Willingness to Pay (or Trade)

Even if you plan a free model, willingness to pay indicates seriousness. If people won’t pay money, would they pay with time, data, referrals, or a workflow change? Example: A team might not buy a new tool, but they will spend hours building spreadsheets—this suggests the problem is real, even if budgets are tight.

5) Clear Buyer and Clear User

In many markets, the user is not the buyer. A problem is easier when the person who feels the pain can also approve spending. Example: Teachers may feel pain, but a school administrator controls purchasing. That doesn’t make it impossible; it means you must identify the economic buyer early.

6) Reachability

Can you reliably reach these people to learn from them and later sell to them? A great problem in an inaccessible niche can stall you. Reachability includes: where they gather, what communities exist, and whether you can contact them without huge costs.

7) Existing Workarounds

Workarounds are evidence of a real problem. If people are using spreadsheets, manual checklists, hiring assistants, or stitching together tools, that’s a strong signal. The more effort they invest in workarounds, the more valuable a better solution can be.

8) Urgency and Timing

Some problems become urgent due to deadlines, seasonal spikes, regulatory changes, or business growth. Urgency shortens sales cycles. Example: “We need to hire and onboard 10 people in 30 days” is more urgent than “We should improve onboarding someday.”

Step-by-Step: Turning a Vague Idea into a Problem Statement

Use this process to move from a broad interest area to a crisp problem you can validate.

Step 1: Pick a specific group (not “everyone”)

Start with a group you can describe in one sentence. Include context like role, environment, and constraints.

• Weak: “busy people”
• Better: “parents of toddlers who work full-time and commute 45+ minutes”
• Better: “independent accountants managing 10–30 small business clients”

Specific groups help you discover specific pains. They also help you find people to talk to and later market to.

Step 2: Identify a job they are trying to get done

Focus on what they are trying to accomplish, not your solution. A “job” is a goal with a context.

• “Prepare accurate monthly reports for clients by the 5th.”
• “Keep a household fed with healthy meals on weeknights.”
• “Respond to customer support tickets within 2 hours.”

Step 3: List obstacles and failure points

Ask: what makes this job hard? Where do errors happen? What causes delays? What creates stress?

• Information scattered across tools
• Dependencies on other people
• Unclear standards or changing requirements
• Manual repetition and copy-pasting
• High consequences for mistakes

Step 4: Write a one-sentence problem statement

Use a template like this:

For [specific group], [important job] is difficult because [main obstacle], which leads to [costly consequence].

Examples:

• “For independent accountants with 10–30 clients, closing the books each month is difficult because client documents arrive in inconsistent formats and late, which leads to overtime, errors, and strained client relationships.”
• “For night-shift hospital staff, getting a healthy meal during breaks is difficult because on-site options are limited and delivery is unreliable, which leads to skipped meals, fatigue, and spending on vending snacks.”

Step 5: Add boundaries (when, where, how often)

Make the problem testable by adding context: when it happens, where it happens, and how often. This prevents you from drifting back into vague territory.

• “During month-end close (last 3 business days)”
• “During weekday evenings between 5–8pm”
• “For teams with 5–20 support agents”

How to Spot Problems People Actually Act On

A problem becomes “worth solving” when people already take action to reduce it. Your job is to find evidence of action, not just opinions.

Look for “pull” behaviors

• They spend money: tools, consultants, outsourcing, premium services.
• They spend time: repeated manual processes, long meetings, training.
• They accept inconvenience: driving farther, switching providers, using clunky systems.
• They create artifacts: templates, checklists, SOPs, internal wikis, spreadsheets.
• They complain in specific terms: not “this is bad,” but “it takes 3 hours because…”

Example: If a small e-commerce owner says, “Every Monday I export orders, copy addresses into a shipping tool, then reconcile tracking numbers in a spreadsheet,” that is a concrete workflow with measurable friction.

Distinguish “pain” from “interest”

People can be interested in many things without being motivated to change. Interest sounds like: “That’s cool,” “I’d try it,” “Maybe.” Pain sounds like: “I hate doing this,” “This keeps happening,” “We’re losing money,” “I need this fixed.”

Common Traps When Selecting a Problem

Trap 1: Solving your own problem that nobody else has

Personal experience can be a great starting point, but it can also be an outlier. If you are the only person with the exact context, the market may be too small. The fix is to test whether others share the same constraints and urgency.

Trap 2: Choosing a problem that depends on “perfect behavior”

If your solution requires people to log everything, follow strict routines, or change habits dramatically, adoption becomes the hardest part. Prefer problems where the solution can fit into existing workflows or reduce effort immediately.

Trap 3: Confusing “big market” with “good first market”

Beginners often pick massive categories (fitness, productivity, education) and then struggle to stand out. A narrower market with a sharp pain can be easier to enter and can expand later.

Trap 4: Picking a problem with no clear decision-maker

Some problems are real but purchasing is fragmented. Example: “Neighborhood safety” is real, but who buys? If you can’t identify who has budget authority, you may face endless interest with no sales.

Trap 5: Overvaluing novelty

Newness is not the same as value. A problem can be old and still worth solving if existing solutions are expensive, complex, or poorly suited to a segment. Many strong businesses win by making something simpler, faster, or more reliable for a specific group.

Practical Exercises to Choose the Best Problem Candidate

Exercise 1: The “Three Problems” list

Write down three groups you can access (through work, friends, communities, local businesses, or online groups). For each group, list five recurring frustrations they face. Do not write solutions. Aim for observable situations.

• Group: “Freelance designers” → frustrations: collecting client feedback, scope creep, late payments, version control, onboarding clients.
• Group: “Gym owners” → frustrations: member churn, class scheduling, staff coverage, billing disputes, lead follow-up.

Then circle the frustrations that have a clear consequence (lost money, lost time, risk).

Exercise 2: Workaround inventory

For each circled problem, answer:

• What do people do today instead?
• How much time does it take per week?
• What tools do they stitch together?
• What do they pay for (even indirectly)?
• What errors happen and what do they cost?

A problem with messy workarounds is often a strong candidate because it shows both pain and a willingness to invest effort.

Exercise 3: The “budget line” test

Ask: where would this come from in their budget or personal spending? You are not setting a price yet; you are checking plausibility.

• If the user is a business: would it be an operations expense, marketing expense, HR expense, compliance expense?
• If the user is a consumer: would it replace something they already pay for (delivery, subscriptions, services), or is it purely additive?

If you cannot name a realistic budget line, the problem may be too “nice to have,” or you may be targeting the wrong buyer.

Exercise 4: Define “success” in measurable terms

Worthwhile problems have measurable improvement. Define what “better” looks like.

• Reduce time from 3 hours to 30 minutes
• Reduce errors from 10 per week to 1 per week
• Increase conversion from 2% to 4%
• Reduce no-shows from 20% to 10%

If you can’t define success, you’ll struggle to prove value and people will struggle to justify paying.

Examples: Weak vs Strong Problem Selection

Example A: “People need motivation to exercise” (weak)

This is broad, and many people say they want it, but behavior change is hard and willingness to pay is unclear. Workarounds exist (free videos, apps, gyms), and the buyer is often the same person who procrastinates.

Stronger reframing: “For remote software engineers who sit 8–10 hours a day, preventing back pain is difficult because they don’t have a simple routine that fits between meetings, which leads to chronic discomfort and reduced productivity.” This is narrower, has a clear consequence, and can be tied to measurable outcomes.

Example B: “Restaurants need better marketing” (weak)

Too broad. Which restaurants? Which marketing? What outcome? What constraint?

Stronger reframing: “For single-location lunch-focused restaurants in business districts, filling seats on rainy weekdays is difficult because foot traffic drops and they can’t quickly reach nearby office workers, which leads to wasted prep and lower daily revenue.” This points to timing, context, and a measurable loss.

Example C: “Students need to study better” (weak)

Many stakeholders, unclear buyer, and a wide range of needs.

Stronger reframing: “For parents of high school students preparing for a specific standardized exam, tracking progress and identifying weak topics is difficult because practice materials are scattered and feedback is slow, which leads to inefficient study time and anxiety close to the exam date.” This clarifies timing and urgency.

Choosing Between Multiple “Good” Problems

You may find several problems that seem real. Use tie-breakers that favor speed and learning.

Tie-breaker 1: Fastest path to evidence

Prefer the problem where you can quickly observe the workflow, collect examples, and measure the pain. If you can watch someone do the task or review artifacts (spreadsheets, emails, checklists), you can learn faster than relying on memory and opinions.

Tie-breaker 2: Highest concentration of pain

Prefer segments where the pain is concentrated and frequent. Example: “property managers handling 50+ units” may feel a stronger version of the same pain than “someone renting out one room occasionally.”

Tie-breaker 3: Clearer path to a first customer

Prefer problems where the buyer can decide quickly, the purchase is small enough to be low-risk, and the value is easy to explain. Early traction often comes from problems with obvious ROI or risk reduction.

Tie-breaker 4: You have unfair access or insight

If you already have access to the target group (through your job, network, or community), you can learn and iterate faster. Access is a real advantage at the beginning.

Problem Selection Worksheet (Copy/Paste)

Use this worksheet to document one candidate problem in a way that forces specificity.

Target group (who exactly? role + context):

Job-to-be-done (what are they trying to accomplish?):

When/where does it happen? How often?:

Main obstacles (top 3):

Current workaround(s):

Cost of inaction (time, money, risk, stress):

Who feels the pain? Who pays?:

What would “success” look like (measurable)?:

Why now? What makes it urgent?:

Score (1-5): Frequency __ Intensity __ Inaction cost __ Willingness to pay __ Reachability __

Fill this out for 3–5 problems and compare. The best candidate is usually the one with strong workarounds, high frequency or high stakes, a clear buyer, and a measurable outcome.