Name it
Find a problem worth solving
Gate cleared when
Write one sentence that names a real person, a real annoyance, and what they do about it today.
The read
About ten minutes. Written for the founder, not the parent.
Almost every kid starts in the same place: “I want to make an app that…”. That is an idea, and ideas are cheap. The thing you are actually hunting for is a problem — a specific person, doing a specific thing, and being annoyed while they do it.
Here is the difference. “An app for organising homework” is an idea. “My mum forgets which nights I have swimming, so she keeps a photo of the timetable in her phone and scrolls to find it” is a problem. The second one tells you who to talk to, what to build, and what you are replacing. The first one tells you nothing.
Where to look, in the order that actually works: your own last seven days, and the moments something annoyed you enough that you sighed. Then the adults in your house — listen at dinner, because complaints are free market research. Then your school. Then a small local business, which is the richest source of all, because businesses will tell you their problems in detail if you ask politely.
Then run every candidate through the one-sentence test:
“[a specific kind of person] is annoyed by [a specific thing], and right now they deal with it by [what they do instead].”
That last blank is the important one. If you cannot fill in what they do today, you have not found a problem — you have imagined one. Every real problem already has a workaround, because people do not just sit there suffering. Your competition is never “nothing”. It is a sticky note, a group chat, a spreadsheet, or someone's memory.
One more filter, and it is the one most people skip: pick the problem where you can reach the most people this week. A brilliant problem belonging to people you cannot talk to is worth less than an ordinary problem belonging to fifteen people you already know.
Your mission
Now go and do this.
Set a timer for twenty minutes and write ten one-sentence problems using the template above. All ten must come from something you actually saw or heard — no inventing. Then circle the one where you personally know at least three people who have it.
The trap
Choosing the problem you have the coolest idea for, instead of the one with the most reachable people. The cool idea will still be there next weekend. Reachable people are what let you finish this course.
Definition of done
All four, honestly.
- Ten problems written down, not three
- Every one names a specific kind of person, not a category like “students”
- Every one says what that person does about it today
- One is circled, and you can name three real people who have it
Nobody is checking these but you. That is the point — this is the first thing you will ever run where the standards are yours to keep.
Saved in this browser. Tick it when the four lines above are genuinely true.