Are you sure most existing solutions really solve someone’s problem well? 👀
1. Guys, I’ve been noticing more and more often in the comments something along these lines: «This problem was solved many years ago, here’s a solution I found on Google in 1 minute».
2. Yes, most often, a problem you see on ProblemHunt at first glance seems to be already solved. And I fell into this trap myself. For example, for one of the problems on PH that I wanted to solve, I found at least three solutions in my search, one of which was created as much as 4 years ago. BUT after a call with the person experiencing the problem, it turned out that the existing products solved it at most 20–30%, and a lot still needed to be improved.
3. Even for one of my own problems, which I published a few months ago, I received comments like this: «Why solve this problem and create a new solution if this product already exists?». Without understanding the depth of my problem, the specifics of my work, and other nuances, they simply advised me to «forget about it» and do things differently, which ultimately didn't solve my problem but only created additional difficulties and friction.
4. Yes, you might indeed come across problems for which ready-made solutions exist that the user might not have been aware of — for example, because they simply didn't search well enough for a solution. But such people, in my observation, are in the minority. It's just that most problems require deeper research, and without personal communication with the people experiencing them, you will only see the tip of the iceberg. Dig deeper, otherwise you risk missing something valuable.
5. This is precisely why ProblemHunt provides direct contacts of the people who shared the problem. 😊
P.S.: One of the most striking examples is Dropbox. Before Dropbox, there were dozens of solutions, but none of them solved the problem properly, so people didn’t use them.
Replies
vibecoder.date
It all comes down to, you don't know what you don't know.
If all I hear is you need a cloud storage solution I know 10 products off the top of my head, but they cover different things, I don't know the size of the data, availability requirements, regulatory ones, etc.
Only you can communicate the needs based on your domain expertise. And that's what gets missed, we place products into categories and we exalt them as law when in reality they are mere labels, linguistic shortcuts.
When you truly understand a problem, you know exactly how the existing solutions are lacking.
The fundamental issue is that most of us are too busy or preoccupied to think deeply about the problems we wish to solve. As an example, I've been itching to build a coding tool, a agentic coding harness. My needs are specific, they are so distinct from products I have seen out there. Claude code gets close but it's 60% at best.
What I require to move as fast as I know I can is too complex to dive into here, Suffice to say I have been planning and researching how to achieve it, the logic I need, the capabilities I want. Because of this effort and thought I have come to understand the different offerings and products out there.
But in trying to articulate my exact needs here, would I be successful? I don't know what I don't know, but perhaps more importantly, I don't know what you know know. I am ignorant of the baseline assumption the reader or listener might have.
So we must be explicit and specific as much as it pains us, it's the price of clarity. (And know how much I mean that since I loathe the buzzword)
We must be willing to approach the problem scope naively, assumptions often hold us back unless they have proven useful.
ProblemHunt
@build_with_aj Thank you for such a thoughtful and well-articulated response — you put into words exactly the nuance I was trying to highlight.
I especially liked how you framed the idea of “not knowing what we don’t know” and the danger of reducing problems to labels and categories. That gap between a surface description (“we need X”) and the real, domain-specific constraints is precisely where most existing solutions quietly fall apart.
Your example with agentic coding tools resonates a lot. From the outside it looks like “this already exists,” but once you’ve done the hard thinking and lived with the problem long enough, you can see very clearly where current products only cover 20–60% of what’s actually needed.
That’s exactly why I believe conversations with real users matter so much — without them, we only ever see the tip of the iceberg. ProblemHunt is my attempt to make those deeper conversations easier to start.
Really appreciate you taking the time to write this — comments like yours are what make the discussion valuable. 🙏
ProblemHunt
Guys, I’m interested to hear your opinion on this :)
Totally agree. I’ve seen “existing solutions” many times that technically solve the problem, but not in the way users actually need. A quick Google search shows tools — real conversations show gaps. The difference is usually in the last 20–30% of usability and context, and that’s where real products are built.
I was studying UX one time and one of the lessons said that It's not about asking "have someone already did this solution/invention/app?" but rather the question we should ask is "If this solution exist, then why do some people still look for alternatives?". This requires studying our competitors, and like you said on #4, we need to talk to people.
Don't follow people (non-target audience) like the one on #3 if they never step into the shoes of their users, because while it may not seem to be solving something in their eyes. It solves for others who genuinely needs it.
An example I have was that Microsoft (CTRL + WIN + L) have live captions overlay. Chrome websites have a caption overlay too, so is Youtube. Some people may not need it, but people who are hard of hearing and deaf do.
The problem with Microsoft captions is that it does not cover all native language. Not all people who speak in voice calls speaks English, and casual conversations are a mix of English and whatever native language they have for someone outside US. When deaf/hard of hearing gamers use those captions in competitive FPS games, the mouse will suddenly click on the overlay which ruins their timing in fast paced games. Another issue is that it would go behind the game instead of staying on top of it, and now they have no idea what someone in their voice call session is speaking about.
So someone (with the same frustration) took the opportunity to create CaptionsRush for gaming community, which allows them to let deaf/hard of hearing users be part of conversations and callouts in games, while still allows them to fight their opponents without the design messing their aim.
The invention eventually spread to the hearing streamers, who weren't the target audience, but eventually benefited from it by making their streams accessible to those who cannot hear and to people who just like captions in general.
Don't be discouraged to pursue an invention, just make sure to listen to the people who you are solving it for.