How to find problems to solve?

The dictionary says a problem is:
"a matter or situation regarded as unwelcome or harmful and needing to be dealt with."

Simple enough.

But if it were that simple, most startups wouldn't die solving problems nobody had.

The trap most builders fall into

Someone has an idea. It feels sharp. Obvious, even. They can see the problem clearly in their head, in their own life, in a conversation they had once at a coffee shop.

So they build.

Six months later they have a product. Clean UI, solid backend, a decent pitch deck. They launch. And then... nothing. A few signups from friends. Some polite feedback. Silence.

The problem? They solved something that existed in their imagination, not in someone's actual life.

This happens more than anyone admits. And it doesn't happen because people are dumb. It happens because building feels productive. Writing code, designing screens, setting up a landing page - all of it feels like progress. But if you haven't validated the pain, you're just moving fast in the wrong direction.

The thing about real problems

Real problems have evidence.

They show up in complaints people keep repeating. In processes so broken that people have built embarrassing workarounds.

That workaround is everything. It means the pain is real enough that people are already spending time and energy managing it. They're not waiting for a solution - they're surviving without one.

If there's no workaround, there's probably no urgency. And without urgency, no one changes their behaviour. No one adopts your product. No one gives a damn.

So how do you build something people actually care about?

Stop starting with the solution. Start with the person.

Find someone who has a problem. Watch how they deal with it today. Ask them what they've already tried. Ask them what it costs them in time, money, stress to live with it.

If they shrug and say "it's fine, we manage" - move on.

But if their face changes. If they lean in and say "oh god, this is the worst part of my week" then stay there. Ask more. Go deeper.

That frustration, that specific moment in their day where something is genuinely broken. That's your starting point.

Not the idea. Not the market size. Not the TAM slide.

The moment where someone's day is worse than it needs to be, and they've accepted it because they don't believe anything better exists.

That's your opening.

Build for that moment. Solve that specific thing. Make it so obviously better that they'd feel the absence of it.

The best products don't need convincing. They just need to be discovered by the right person at the right moment.

And that only happens when the problem is real - not assumed, not imagined, not built around a gap that exists only on a whiteboard.

To get close to the problem, get close to the person.

Everything else follows.