What Pain-Point are you Solving and How did you discover it?
We’re all builders here, which usually means at some point we looked at something clunky, slow, or frustrating and thought, “there has to be a better way.” Most products don’t start with a grand vision; they start with irritation, curiosity, or firsthand pain.
I’d love to learn more about how others here have navigated that journey:
• How did you uncover the problem you decided to work on?
• What signals told you this problem was worth solving?
• How did you validate (if at all) whether people would actually pay for a solution?
• Has your product stayed true to the original problem, or did it evolve into something different?
• What surprised you the most along the way?
If there’s anything else you’ve learned, good or bad, feel free to share. The honest stories are usually the most helpful.
And of course, feel free to plug what you’re building as well as you may have the solution to a problem somebody else is looking for!
Replies
I kept seeing the same thing in client projects: the actual project was scattered everywhere.
A requirement changed in email, a decision happened on Slack, feedback lived in Figma — and eventually someone had to reconstruct what actually happened.
I originally built Bracket to turn messy client conversations into structured scope and decisions. But after people started using it, I realised the bigger problem wasn’t starting a project clearly - it was keeping that context accurate as the project changed.
That’s what we’ve rebuilt Bracket around now: connecting to the tools people already use and maintaining the project memory over time.
The biggest surprise was that people cared less about “AI” and much more about simply not losing context.
The problem I kept running into
Screen time blockers and productivity apps live in two separate worlds. You turn on a blocker and there's nothing on the other side telling you what to actually do with the time you just freed up, so half the time you just wait out the timer instead of using it for anything.
Why it felt worth solving
Not because the blocking itself is weak, most iOS blockers run on the same Screen Time APIs, so there's no real edge there. It's that blocking sits completely disconnected from your actual routine, your tasks, your habits, your goals. That disconnect is what felt off to me, distraction management as a standalone toggle instead of something tied to what you're supposed to be doing.
Has it stayed the same or evolved
The core idea hasn't really changed, tasks, habits, and goals live in the same app as the blocking. What's grown is everything built around that: different focus modes for how strict you want the block to be, mindful block screens instead of just a hard wall, a widget so the timer's visible without opening the app.
What surprised me most
How much people wanted the blocking to feel like part of their day rather than something punishing they had to fight against. That shaped a lot of the in-app messaging more than any single feature did.
I'm building Disciplines: App Blocker, tasks, habits, goals, and app blocking in one place. Built it solo, would genuinely love to hear what people think if anyone wants to take a look.