Finding Problems Worth Solving

1. Why Start With Problems, Not Ideas

Most beginners start with solutions (an app, a product, a feature). Experienced founders start with problems.

Problem-first thinking means:

• You identify a real, painful problem in someone’s life or work.
• You understand who has that problem (customer segment).
• You check how they solve it today (competitors and alternatives).
• Only then do you explore possible solutions.

This fits modern lean startup and agile thinking you saw in the previous module:

• Instead of building a big product and hoping, you test assumptions early.
• You treat your idea as a hypothesis about a problem worth solving.

In this module you’ll learn to:

1. Spot and sharpen real problems.
2. Define who has the problem (personas).
3. Check how big and attractive the opportunity might be.
4. Scan competitors and alternatives.
5. Choose a problem that’s worth your time before you build anything.

2. Spotting Problems in Everyday Life

You’re surrounded by potential startup problems every day. The key is to notice friction.

Common sources of problems:

• Tasks that are slow, confusing, or annoying.
• Things people complain about repeatedly.
• Processes that are manual or repetitive.
• Situations where people use workarounds (spreadsheets, sticky notes, multiple apps).

Quick Activity (3 minutes)

Grab paper or open a notes app. For each question, jot down 2–3 answers:

1. Student life: What regularly frustrates you about classes, group projects, exams, housing, or campus services?
2. Money & work: What feels painful about finding part-time jobs, internships, or managing your budget?
3. Daily routines: Where do you waste time (transport, food, admin, communication)?

Now rewrite one frustration as a problem statement:

• Format: `A specific person + a situation + the pain`
• Example: “First-year international students struggle to understand local rental contracts and often sign unfair agreements.”

Pick one problem statement you wrote. You’ll refine it in the next steps.

3. Turning a Vague Issue into a Sharp Problem Statement

A sharp problem statement is specific enough that you could find real people who match it.

Bad (too vague):

> Students hate university admin.

Better (more specific):

> Final-year undergrads applying for international master’s programs find it confusing and time-consuming to collect and upload all required documents to multiple university portals.

Use these 4 questions to sharpen your problem:

1. Who exactly? (age, role, situation)
2. When/where does the problem show up?
3. What is the pain? (lost time, lost money, stress, risk, missed opportunities)
4. How do you know it matters? (complaints, visible workarounds, measurable impact)

Simple template

> [Customer segment] struggle to [do X] when [situation/context], which leads to [negative outcome].

Example:

> First-year computer science students struggle to keep track of assignment deadlines across multiple platforms (LMS, email, chat apps), which leads to missed deadlines and lower grades.

Refine your chosen problem statement using this template.

4. Defining a Simple Persona for Your Target Customer

A persona is a simple, realistic description of a typical customer in your target segment. It’s not a full biography; it’s a decision-making tool.

Persona checklist (keep it short)

Include:

• Name & role: A label like “Sara, 21, final-year CS student”
• Context: Where they are in life/work.
• Goals: What they’re trying to achieve.
• Frustrations: Related to your problem.
• Current behavior: How they deal with the problem today.

Example Persona

• Name & role: Alex, 20, second-year mechanical engineering student
• Context: Takes 5–6 courses per term, active in a student club, part-time job.
• Goals: Keep GPA above 3.5, have time for club activities and friends.
• Frustrations: Deadline overload, information scattered across email, LMS, WhatsApp.
• Current behavior: Uses a mix of a paper planner, calendar app, and screenshots in a photo gallery.

Your turn (3–4 minutes)

Using your refined problem statement, write one persona:

1. Give them a name and role.
2. Add 1–2 sentences for each of the bullets above.
3. Make them realistic enough that you could imagine interviewing them.

You’ll use this persona to think about market size and competitors next.

5. Estimating Market Size and Attractiveness (Without Fancy Tools)

Before building anything, you want a rough sense of how big and attractive the opportunity might be.

5.1. Basic market size concepts

• Total Addressable Market (TAM): Everyone in the world who could use a solution.
• Serviceable Available Market (SAM): The part of TAM you can realistically reach (e.g., by geography or language).
• Serviceable Obtainable Market (SOM): The slice you might realistically capture in the next few years.

For early-stage student projects, a rough, logical estimate is enough.

5.2. A simple bottom-up estimate

Start from your persona and scale up:

1. How many people like your persona exist in your target region?
2. What fraction of them truly feel the pain (e.g., 30–60%)?
3. How much might they reasonably pay per year (or what value could you capture per user via ads, B2B sales, etc.)?

Then:

```text

Potential annual revenue ≈ (# target users) × (% with strong pain) × (avg revenue per user per year)

```

Example

Problem: Deadline overload for second-year engineering students at one university.

1. 4,000 undergrad engineering students.
2. Focus on 2nd and 3rd years → ~2,500 students.
3. Estimate 60% feel strong pain → 1,500 students.
4. Maybe they’d pay the equivalent of $15/year for a premium tool.

```text

1,500 × $15 ≈ $22,500 per year at this one university.

```

Not huge, but if you expand to 50 similar universities, the theoretical TAM grows.

Attractiveness test:

• Is the pain strong enough that people will switch from current habits?
• Are there adjacent segments (e.g., other departments, professionals) that could increase the opportunity?
• Is the market growing or shrinking (e.g., more students, more digital tools)?

6. Quick Market Size Exercise

Using your persona and problem, do a rough bottom-up estimate.

1. Define your initial scope:

• One university? One city? One country?

1. Estimate # of potential users in that scope.

• Use public info where possible (university stats, government data, job sites).

1. Estimate % with strong pain.

• Be honest. If you’re not sure, pick something like 30–50% and mark it as a hypothesis.

1. Estimate possible revenue per user per year.

• If it’s a student product, maybe they pay little or nothing directly.
• You might imagine B2B (universities, employers) paying instead.

1. Multiply:

```text

users × % with strong pain × revenue per user per year

```

Write down:

• Your numbers.
• 1–2 biggest assumptions you’d need to validate by talking to real people.

This doesn’t need to be “correct”; it needs to be explicit so you can test it later.

7. Competitors and Alternatives: You *Want* to Find Them

If you find no competitors or alternatives, it usually means:

• The problem isn’t important enough, or
• You haven’t searched well.

In 2026, customers almost always have some way of dealing with a problem.

7.1. Types of competitors

• Direct competitors: Offer very similar solutions to the same problem and segment.
• Indirect competitors: Solve the problem differently or for a broader/narrower segment.
• DIY alternatives: Spreadsheets, paper, generic tools (WhatsApp, Google Docs, Notion, etc.).

7.2. How to do a quick competitor scan

Use:

• Search engines (Google, DuckDuckGo, etc.).
• App stores (Google Play, Apple App Store).
• Product directories (Product Hunt, G2, Capterra).
• Social media and forums (Reddit, X/Twitter, Discord, specialized communities).

Search using problem phrases, not just your idea:

• Instead of “student productivity app”, try “how do students track deadlines” or “tool to manage university assignments”.

7.3. What to look for

For each competitor/alternative, note:

• Who they target (segment).
• Main value they claim (what problem they say they solve).
• Strengths: What they do well.
• Gaps: Complaints in reviews, missing features, segments they ignore.

You’re not trying to prove you’re unique. You’re trying to understand how the problem is already being solved and where you could be meaningfully better for a specific segment.

8. Mini Competitor & Alternatives Map

Take your chosen problem and persona. Spend a few minutes (you can extend this after class) mapping competitors and alternatives.

A. List at least 3 existing ways your persona handles the problem

Examples:

• Apps: Trello, Notion, Google Calendar.
• Manual: Paper planners, sticky notes.
• People: Asking friends, tutors, admin staff.

B. For each, answer briefly:

1. Who is it really built for? (students, professionals, general public?)
2. What does it do well for your persona?
3. What does it do poorly or not at all?

Use a simple table in your notes:

```text

Name / Alternative | Built for | Does well | Does poorly / gaps

-------------------|----------|----------|---------------------

| | |

| | |

| | |

```

C. Identify one potential angle

Based on your table, complete this sentence:

> For [persona], existing options are weak because they [gap]. A better solution could focus on [your angle].

Example:

> For second-year engineering students, existing tools are weak because they don’t integrate course-specific deadlines from the LMS automatically. A better solution could focus on syncing official course deadlines into a single, student-friendly view.

9. Quick Check: Problem vs. Solution

Test your understanding of problem-first thinking.

10. Flashcard Review: Key Concepts

Flip through these key terms to solidify your understanding.

11. Decide: Is This Problem Worth Your Next Week?

Imagine you have one week to explore a startup idea for a course project or side hustle.

Using everything from this module, answer for your chosen problem:

1. Problem clarity (1–5): How clearly can you describe who has the problem, in what situation, and why it matters?
2. Pain intensity (1–5): How painful is this for your persona (time, money, stress, risk)?
3. Market potential (1–5): Based on your rough estimate, could this grow beyond a tiny niche if it works?
4. Competitive landscape (1–5): Is there a realistic gap or angle compared to existing solutions?
5. Personal fit/interest (1–5): Are you genuinely interested enough to talk to people and iterate on this?

Add up your score (max 25):

• 20–25: Strong candidate to explore further.
• 14–19: Maybe worth exploring, but refine your understanding or compare with another problem.
• 13 or below: Probably better as a learning exercise; consider a different problem.

If your score is low, repeat these steps with another problem from your earlier list. The goal is not to marry your first idea, but to practice choosing problems more wisely.