Product

Vulnerable talk on picking problems worth solving. 

"Solve a problem that’s big enough that they’re going to block their whole day."

"No matter how much you polish the wrong product, if it's not for a big enough problem, it just won't go anywhere."

https://youtu.be/MJAmliXAGLg?si=xWC3Mu3oMn3gQJcN&t=37

Chasing Curiosity. Empathetic Accelerationist. Founding Fullstack Engineer @icebreaker. YC S16, KB7. 
icbk.me/tayyab.fc

I just ask myself a bunch of questions and try to be honest with myself. I've gotten in trouble when I rushed the thinking or let my bias get in the way of being honest. 

Who is this for?
What problem is this solving?
Do I have this problem? How close am I to it?
How do people solve the problem now?
How much time/money do people pay to solve it?
How frequent is the problem? Is it daily, weekly, monthly, yearly?

Curious, how you think about this:

I think one of my flaws is that I think of problems that are TOO big, let’s take economic freedom or decentralized marketplaces as one. It’s usually my starting point, and then I have to get practical but it’s hard to get your mind out of the idealism. 

How does one balance that with “build something people want”?

an alternate approach to this will be - pick an industry that you're passionate about. start with solving a small problem that creates a wedge for you to actively participate in the industry. this will give you insight into the bigger problems to solve

doing " is this problem big enough" theoretically is sometimes crippling & not actionable

So true and I've been burned by this 

Two litmus tests Ive heard to avoid small problems:

1) if customers aren't emotional when explaining the problem to you, it probably isn't a big problem

2) if customers haven't actively explored alternatives before seeing your solution , it probably isn't a big problem