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.