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
I agree with this.
A polished demo can get attention, but the problem is what makes people stop and care.
I’ve been learning this while building my own product. Early on, it’s easy to explain what something does because you know every feature and decision behind it. But a new person does not have that context. They need to understand the pain first.
For me, the clearer question has become:
What problem does this solve in one sentence?
Not “what features did I build?”
Not “how much work went into it?”
But “why would someone care enough to try it?”
The products that land fastest usually make the user feel seen before they explain the full feature set. The demo then proves the solution, but the problem is what earns the attention.
@thecaptainjetto Thanks for sharing your thoughts, Tyler! THIS: What problem does this solve in one sentence - is the biggest lever. It has to be clear AND concise - if your answer sounds more like a TedTalk, you have a positioning problem. Users have to feel the problem in your answer, otherwise they're moving on.
Btw, connected with you on LinkedIn - happy to help out a fellow Canadian ;)
@anna_ludwinowski Thank you, Anna I really appreciate that.
That line is exactly what I’m working on tightening. As a founder, it’s easy to explain the whole build because I know every decision behind it, but a cold user needs to feel the problem fast.
For The Social Circle, the problem I’m trying to make clearer is:
People have different parts of their online identity, but most platforms force everything into one mixed feed.
Still refining the shortest version, but your point is dead on if it takes a TED Talk to explain, the positioning still needs work.
And thank you for connecting on LinkedIn. Always good to meet another Canadian builder/supporter.
@thecaptainjetto This is exactly the kind of self-awareness that makes for real positioning work. The fact that you're already feeling the gap between "here's what I built" and "here's why someone would care" means you're halfway there.
Your positioning isn't really "stop being scattered" - it's granting permission to expect something different from your product. Like: "Your gaming identity shouldn't require five platforms to feel complete."
That emotional shift is what flips someone from "neat feature" to "actually, I really want this!". You're offering something different that offers identity and a place of belonging. That's powerful!
Propane
It's a mix.. the problem needs to resonate, but so does the messaging and solution
@atherkildsen Agreed, it is a combination and having the clarity on the problem you solve helps the messaging resonate.
Propane
@anna_ludwinowski 💯
Honest tension as a maker: when I scroll PH, the demo grabs me first. But the launches I remember a week later are the ones where I actually felt the problem.
The hardest problems to pitch are the invisible ones — people don't notice them until you name them. A demo alone never lands there, because nothing looks broken. You have to make someone feel the gap first.
So for me it's not problem-first OR demo-first. The best launches make you feel the problem through the demo. (Funny enough, the product I'm launching here Monday is built on exactly that.)
@mincheol_kim We remember things that make us FEEL - happiness, sadness, frustration, anger, loneliness, love - because they hit us deep inside. The feel comes from the problem, not the demo, so I'm going to push back on your assessment. The demo is the vehicle that (hopefully) captures the feeling.
I took a look at your product, Bubbling, and you articulated the problem well- "I started it from a worry I kept having: the more I used AI, the less I heard myself."
The bigger question is: do other people have this same problem? And the follow-up question: is that FEELING & PROBLEM clearly stated in my launch messaging?
@anna_ludwinowski Yeah, I agree - the demo can spark feeling because of the problem the user is actually experiencing.
Thanks for taking a look at my product. I'm a developer, and a lot of my colleagues have said things like "I feel like I'm getting dumber because AI just does everything for me." There's even a term for it now - "outsourcing your thinking" - because people feel like their ability to sit with a hard problem alone has genuinely declined.
As for the follow-up question, I'll say no. Honestly, I'm not sure how to translate the problem people are experiencing into the right copy and demo. Making a strong first impression is really hard. I don't think my current copy makes a stranger go "oh wait, that's exactly the problem I have."
I'm curious - how do you approach making someone who's never seen your product before feel like it's "their story" right away?
Problem first, always. If I can't tell what gets easier in the first few seconds, a slick demo just feels like a feature looking for a reason. The demo only earns my attention after the problem makes me feel seen.
@fbajo "A feature looking for a problem" - nailed it!
The pain is simple: many independent educators and storytellers assume that quality animation requires a studio, a team, and a huge budget—so their ideas never get made.
I'm an indie creator from Chennai, India, and I started RandomTyms while trying to solve this problem for my own family.
My children wear glasses, and I wanted them to see heroes who look like them, speak a natural mix of Tamil and English (Tanglish), and navigate the same modern world they do.
So I began experimenting with an AI-powered workflow built entirely on a smartphone to see whether one person could create engaging educational stories without traditional production resources.
RandomTyms isn't just about relatable stories for kids—it's also an exploration of whether local creators can build meaningful educational media without needing a studio-sized budget.
@randomtyms Thanks for sharing here! Sounds like you're solving a huge problem for indie creators in this specialized area. The question is does your messaging clearly pinpoint the pain from that problem? Are your Prospects utterly frustrated because they think there's no other way besides having a studio & huge budgets?!
@anna_ludwinowski Thanks Anna, really appreciate you calling this out! You're right about the studio/budget pain. For me it started more personal — my two kids wear glasses and never saw heroes who look and talk like them in Tanglish. I built RandomTyms so parents like me don't need a studio or huge budget to give their kids that representation. I'll tighten the messaging to make that frustration clearer.
Absolutely agree! Sometimes as creators we tend to fall in love with the solution. We were recently redesigning our website and after a couple of iterations I realized that we never mentioned the problem we are solving anywhere. Guess this happens to the demos here too. Great reminder!
@margharitha Ha, it happens to all of us, at some point! The main thing is you noticed and can fix it ;)
Does it reduce the steps and make it easier to solve a problem than the existing tools that already solve the problem? - is my first thought.
Lesser steps, same output - saves time, gets my job done quick, and eventually more time to focus on other things.
@aakash_srinivasan Great - if that's the problem your product solves (time is money!), make sure that appears CLEARLY in your messaging copy.
Totally agree. When the problem is clear, the demo feels like proof instead of decoration.
That was a lesson for us with Vault, too. The output looked nice, but the real problem was helping users understand how they can avoid spending hours designing and coding engaging website interactions from scratch if they just use Vault.
We had to sharpen the messaging, and that tiny shift made it much easier to understand.
problem first, always. the launches I stop scrolling for are the ones where I read the first sentence and think "that's exactly my issue." the ones I scroll past lead with a feature list and make me work to figure out why I should care.
that's actually how we think about it at BetterClaw too. the problem we solve is simple... deploying and managing AI agents is still way too complicated. most teams spend more time on infrastructure, security, and server management than on what the agent actually does. we exist so they don't have to deal with that part.
the best performing content I've ever made wasn't about what the product does, it was about the pain it removes. if you can name the problem better than your customer can, they'll trust you to solve it
@tina_chhabra Oh yeah, you KNOW how this works - lead with the problem you solve. You're giving your Clients peace of mind knowing that they can focus on what they do best! This leads to the next question: what's peace of mind worth to someone with this problem? Often we don't fully realize the benefit we bring to our Clients and undercharge for our services/products ;)
@anna_ludwinowski that's such a good point and honestly something we think about a lot. the peace of mind of knowing your agents are running securely without worrying about infrastructure is hard to put a price on because the alternative isn't just money, it's the hours your team spends babysitting servers instead of building. and you're right about undercharging... most founders price based on what it costs them to build, not what it's worth to the customer. the gap between those two is usually massive
@tina_chhabra Yes, massive! Many don't factor in those HOURS spent babysitting, which are $$$ tied up doing nothing when they could be earning revenue. And THAT'S worth $$$!
I look for the problem/need first.
However, note that some products are solving the problem of a bad existing UX and user interface (think about the goal "to manage virtual private servers" and solutions — via the terminal VS via a cloud panel with a convenient UI), that's where the appearance of the user interface and its presentation matters.
@wvitalik Good point and a problem, no matter what it is, is still a problem. And I suspect that UX problems are very common. Building a solution is one thing for the developer, but making it easy to understand for the user (and non-developer) is quite another.