Finding a real problem

The most common mistake new founders make is starting from a solution instead of a problem. Someone thinks "let's build an app for ...", the team writes code for months, and then it turns out nobody needs the app. Not because the product is bad, but because the problem it solves does not hurt anyone enough.

So the first job is to find a real problem.

A few familiar scenes. A shop owner at the bazaar writes goods sold on credit into a notebook and struggles to remember who owes what. A private clinic takes appointments by phone and the schedule gets tangled. A delivery service tracks orders in Telegram chats and orders go missing. In each case people already feel the problem and are already trying to solve it somehow. That is a good sign.

The best ideas often come from a field the founder knows well. Think about your own work, your studies, your family business, and the industries where people you know work. An insider notices problems an outsider cannot see. Someone who has worked at a logistics company, for example, has watched the daily confusion between drivers and dispatchers first-hand.

Another method: for one week, write down everything that annoys you. Every time you catch yourself thinking "why has nobody fixed this yet?", note it.

If a person cannot recall a specific recent case, the problem probably does not bother them much.

The user and the buyer are not always the same person. In a shop, the cashier uses the software but the owner pays for it. In a clinic, the receptionist works with the system but the head doctor decides. You need to understand the problem from both the user's and the buyer's point of view. In many small businesses in Uzbekistan the owner makes the decision personally. That is good news: if you reach them, the sale can be quick.

The first solution you think of is almost never the last. The more you talk to customers, the better you understand the problem, and the solution changes. If you get too attached to your own solution, you stop hearing what customers are telling you. "I help shop owners manage goods sold on credit" is a stronger goal than "I am building a mobile app for credit sales". The first leaves you free to change course: perhaps the best answer is not an app at all, but a Telegram bot or a simple SMS reminder.

Write down ten problems you have seen in the past month. For each, note who has it, how it is being solved today and how often it comes up. Then pick the two or three where people already spend money or a lot of time. Those are the ones we will work with in the next lessons.