What's the PROBLEM your product solves?
In the month that I've been here, I've been noticing a pattern in a lot of launches - strong demos, polished UI, clear outputs of "what it does."
But when I ask myself "What problem does this solve?" I sometimes have to dig for the answer. (I come by that thinking honestly - I've spent 33 years building and fixing businesses, so this is the lens I can't turn off.)
The products where the problem is obvious are the ones people actually buy - you see it, you go "oh, that's exactly my issue," and you're sold on it.
It also makes pitching easier. If you're clear on the problem, explaining your product to anyone - buyers, other makers, whoever - gets a lot simpler.
And it's a small tweak with a big payoff - naming the problem clearly in your launch messaging can be the difference between people scrolling past and people stopping to actually look.
Curious what others think: when you're checking out a launch here, do you look for the problem first, or does the demo/output usually sell you on its own?
Replies
Problem first, always, and I hold myself to a specific test for it. I run a small portfolio of niche tools alongside a full time data job, and the filter that decides whether something gets built is whether I can write the problem as one sentence with a cost in it. Not what it does, what it costs someone today. The one that taught me this is a legal docs tool I built after watching US freelancers get quoted 300 to 500 dollars by a lawyer for what is mostly standardised LLC paperwork. That sentence has a person, a bill and an alternative in it, so the product barely needs explaining. The ideas where I cannot write that sentence are the ones that stall, and in hindsight they deserved to. If the problem statement needs the word platform or the phrase all in one, I am usually describing features because the pain is not sharp enough. So when I scroll launches here I do the same thing you do, look for the named cost. A demo shows me the product works. The problem sentence tells me whether anyone was waiting for it.
I build Sceneforge to turn an idea to actionable plan, tool list, price list estimated budget, and the place you can buy directly.It's for DIY makers, Creators & Hobbyists.
I agree.
The clearer the problem statement, the easier it is to understand the value.
Interestingly, we've found the same thing happens during development. Most AI tools optimize for generating code, while the hardest part is actually building a correct understanding of the business.
Once that understanding exists, generating the software becomes much easier.
Demo first almost always, then I go looking for the problem myself if the launch doesn't name it. The one pattern I keep noticing: founders can usually state the problem clearly for a stranger's business, and go vague the moment it's their own. Distance makes the diagnosis easy, proximity makes it foggy. Writing the launch copy as if you're describing someone else's product is a decent trick for getting that clarity back.
I have a hard time with the problem/solution framing. What problem do games solve? I guess the problem would be lack of entertainment? Some things just make life more enjoyable. I made Life Sprites because I wanted more fun AI helping me with my life. There was no real problem solved but I still love it and it made my life better. Non fun AI is still pretty amazing, but fun AI is just more fun. This is probably why I have no users though. No problem solved. Though I did alienate friends and family while creating it. So Life Sprites really created more problems and solved zero. I think this reflection explains my one message and upvote on launch. Thoughts to ponder... maybe next time I'll start with a real problem like everyone said to do from the beginning. Wise, wise people I didn't listen to. To those just getting started: DON'T BE A JESSIE!
The test I use on myself: if I can't say the problem in one sentence a stranger already recognizes, I'm still describing the feature list to myself, not the problem.
I completely agree with this! As a developer, I am definitely guilty of getting distracted by a beautiful UI or a cool demo, but if I can't figure out the actual problem it solves within 10 seconds, I bounce.
I tried to keep this front-of-mind when I was building my current project (an AI prompt engineering wizard).
The Problem: People are getting frustrated with LLMs giving them robotic "walls of text" because their prompts are too vague. But manually typing out <role> tags or Markdown headers every time is tedious. Furthermore, almost every "prompt generator" out there is a paid, black-box wrapper that logs your data.
The Solution: A transparent, 100% free, local-first wizard that forces you to use the RTF framework and automatically formats the syntax for Claude or ChatGPT.
If a product is just a "cool UI" wrapper around the ChatGPT API, the problem it solves is usually just making the founder money. The best products solve an actual point of friction in the user's daily workflow.
For finly the problem isn't "track your spending," every finance app already claims that. It's that logging a transaction takes long enough that people quietly stop doing it within a week, and then the data goes stale and nothing built on top of it means anything. The actual bet is closing the gap between something happening and it being recorded, that's the whole reason voice entry exists in the product instead of just another form.
I completely agree. The clearest products are the ones that solve a specific problem people already experience every day. Features can attract attention, but a well-defined problem is what creates demand. If someone immediately thinks, “That's exactly what I've been struggling with,” you've already made a strong first impression.
The problem gets lost because most people describe the feature instead of the moment right before someone needs it. I am building something legal adjacent for UK renters right now, and the actual problem is not the housing issue itself. It is that someone sends a message to a landlord, gets ignored, and has no idea what happens next. Once I started writing from that moment instead of the feature list, the whole pitch got shorter and clearer.