How do you decide which product idea to build – and which one to kill?
A lot of makers come out with bold claims about their idea: THE NEXT BIG THING.
In most cases, surprisingly, it’s not even the next small thing. People simply don’t notice it.
– There’s an overload of products.
– They’re easier to build than ever.
– And getting people’s attention is harder each time.
Some ideas don’t just feel unoriginal to me, they don’t even feel useful.
Recently, I’ve really liked concepts like @ProblemHunt and @404tomb , where people can validate an idea before building, whether there’s actual demand for it, or whether that idea has already failed in the past.
How do you decide if something is worth building?
And how much time do you usually give an MVP before moving on?
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I usually look for whether people are already creating messy workarounds for the prob.
minimalist phone: reduce your screentime
@charlotte_reed1 And then do you create the best one solution? Or where do you search for that allerts?
Curious how much weight you give personal conviction versus market validation.
minimalist phone: reduce your screentime
@jack_sullivan5 OFC, I am biased, only my personal conviction until I am disappointed.
Usually makers fail, because they are makers. To create a product, and before any kind of making, a good analysis needs to be done. Do a S.W.O.T analysis. Find your audience, talk with, check their problems their needs, and behavior. Check the market cap, to see if all this makes sense. Do a kind of small requirement document, do an MVP, discuss it with the audience. And this may take months.
Once all is clear, and there are good indications and positive feedback, then the maker can start gradually to prepare more detailed requirements, (functional, non-functional), UI/UX, architecture, backlog, etc. And all the time, communication with the potential clients.
And my question is, how many people are actually following those steps, before pushing their products in platforms like this? ;)
They don't teach us such things at technical universities ;)
And we are still far way from the sales and marketing strategies. Even though the clients should be known, selling the products is mostly difficult for makers, like me ;)
@stoyan_minchev
Interesting question, because I realized my process ended up being very different from the usual “build → validate → kill” cycle.
The SWOT analysis gave me clarity — not about which ideas to kill, but about how the different parts of the system actually support each other. If something isn't working, the idea itself rarely is the problem. The angle is.
The software became the translation of that into something usable in practice. And the harder part wasn't deciding what to build. It was figuring out how to make a complex process feel intuitive to use.
minimalist phone: reduce your screentime
@stoyan_minchev that's the thing, e.g. we used to learn SWOT and SWAT analysis etc, but I haven't applied it properly because I haven't been building any product. Everybody lack something and we need to learn on our own failures :D
The MVP timeline ques feels difficult because some products need longer before users fully understand them.
minimalist phone: reduce your screentime
@cody_spencer Because of the audience that is not prepared yet?
I've noticed founders often kill ideas too early when distribution is actually the bigger issue.
minimalist phone: reduce your screentime
@dylan_hayes2 Probably the times spend on it outweighs possible advantages (that may not come).
Sometimes small but repeated engagement signals matter more than large launch attention.
minimalist phone: reduce your screentime
@scarlett_hayes1 What are those small engagement signals? :)
ProblemHunt
Nika, hi!
Thank you so much for mentioning @ProblemHunt — I really appreciate it!
To answer your questions, personally, this is how I would do it:
First, figure out whether people actually have the problem. To do this, you need to talk to people using questions related to their past and present experiences (people often lie about the future).
If the problem exists, and most importantly we see that it is truly painful, then we move on to building an MVP.
We give the MVP to users, collect feedback, and continue improving the product until the people’s problem is solved (this will become obvious).
This whole process can take different amounts of time — it all depends on the complexity of the problem and the product. In one case it may take 2–3 months, while in another it could take 1–2 years. 😊
minimalist phone: reduce your screentime
@ProblemHunt @gostroverhov Thank you for answering this, just wanna mention that I could validate my problem with others in Facebook groups, also with your tool + Reddit. + Some people messaged me on X too :D It is a huge motivation to keep working on it :D
ProblemHunt
@busmark_w_nika Nika, I sincerely admire your determination. I’m sure everything will work out for you. Wishing you success on this journey :)
minimalist phone: reduce your screentime
@gostroverhov Thank you, Boris :)
Most ideas don’t fail because they’re bad — they fail because no one cared enough.
So the first filter for me isn’t “is this big?” but “is this actually felt by someone?” If I can’t point to a real, recurring frustration (ideally one I’ve experienced myself or seen up close), I don’t touch it. Validation tools like are useful, but they’re signals — not decisions. You still need judgment. If something feels unoriginal but solves a real pain better, faster, or more honestly, it’s still worth building.
Dropping an idea usually comes down to energy, not just metrics. If after a fair push (talking to users, iterating, trying to get even a small group to care) there’s no pull and you find yourself losing conviction, that’s a red flag. But lack of traction early on doesn’t automatically mean failure — it often just means distribution isn’t solved yet. A lot of good products don't reach success because the founder expected immediate validation instead of building endurance.
For MVP timelines, I don’t believe in rigid deadlines. I look for movement: are people returning, asking for more, even in small numbers? If yes, I keep going. If not, I ask a harder question — do I still believe in this enough to push through the quiet phase? Because if you truly do, you don’t abandon it easily.
Sometimes ideas don’t need to be dropped — they need time, better positioning, or eventually more resources than a solo founder can provide.
The question I come back to—and one I think every founder should ask—is this: are you simply trying to validate that something could work, or are you genuinely committed to doing what it takes to make it work?
minimalist phone: reduce your screentime
@robert_adrian_knippelberg depends on the product and whether people are prepared. And sometimes it is specific to the industry (spaceships, vacciness), etc.
But it is easier to move on with the next idea rather than fixing something that may take more time than finding the right problem (which would show results sooner).
@busmark_w_nika I agree — timing and industry matter a lot more than people admit. Some ideas genuinely need years, regulation shifts, or market education before they click.
But I still think most founders underestimate endurance. Not every good product shows obvious traction early, especially if the problem is real but the distribution or positioning isn’t solved yet. The danger is that it becomes easier to chase a new idea than to stay long enough to understand why people aren’t responding yet.
The harder question is probably this: are you losing because the market doesn’t care, or because you haven’t learned how to make them care yet? That’s where a lot of founder decisions are made too early.
I don't usually kill ideas if I believe they make sense. I adjust how I build them.
Most of my pivots weren't about the idea being wrong — they were about the timing, the form, or the approach. The core stayed. What changed was how I got there.
The harder question for me isn't "should I kill this?" but "why isn't this working yet?"
Sometimes the answer is the audience. Sometimes it's the timing. Sometimes it's just the way the idea is being translated into a product.
minimalist phone: reduce your screentime
@susanne_ertl Okay, so how many ideas usually have vs how many you actually build?
@busmark_w_nika
Enough to keep me busy for years :). The real filter is prioritization — extensions of what already exists come first. New ones wait their turn.
The ProblemHunt and 404tomb references are great resources. Most of us skip that step entirely.
My personal filter came down to one question, which was is there a painful workaround that people are already doing on their own? If someone is copying and pasting raw documents into ChatGPT and asking it to summarise them, that's a real signal. They've already decided the problem is worth solving. You're just building a better version of what they've already hacked together.
The MVP timeline question is harder - I've found the wrong metric is how long you've been building, and the right one is how many people you've watched use it without you explaining it first. If you have to pitch it every single time, that's the clock to watch, not the calendar.
What made you look at ProblemHunt specifically? Curious whether you found it genuinely useful for killing ideas or mostly for validating ones you already wanted to build.
minimalist phone: reduce your screentime
@willatsharpread I had a look at the Problem Hunt because its maker is pretty active online, so it sparked my attention (I got there from his forum) :)