Sell Validated Problems for $500–$10k 🦄
Guys, ProblemHunt has formed an international community of developers (mainly from USA, India, Russia, UK, France, Germany, and other countries) who are looking for startup ideas based on real problems. We find and share different people's problems with them, and the community is now growing rapidly.
Currently, all problems are published publicly and for free. However, they are published without validation: no confirmation that the problem truly exists, that others experience it too, and no check of willingness to pay. There's also no market sizing, target audience profile, or clear description of a solution that could and should be developed.
If there are any product managers among you who can handle this, you could sell deeply researched and validated problems to our developers. According to our estimates, there should be an average of 5–7 developers ready to buy each such problem. The price for one such problem could range from $500 to $10,000 depending on its potential.
If you're interested — please write to me. Email: gostroverhovb@gmail.com
Replies
Very cool! I'm curious, how do you prevent people from selling shitty research painted as a great opportunity just to make a buck? Also, I wouldnt buy a problem until Ive read the research and why pay if I can read it for free? These are just my thoughts. And maybe Im not understanding.
I love the idea of a central spot for sharing ideas and problems, I'm definitely checking it out!
ProblemHunt
@teamrocketgruntmax Hi! Thanks again for reaching out. Let me briefly outline the main idea.
I'm not a product person myself and I'm not great at finding and validating problems. However, based on feedback from various developers in our community (around 20 people), here's what they typically ask for:
To know how many people are experiencing the same problem. Ideally, finding 5-20 people with direct contact details who have this issue. And who these people are (the target audience profile).
Whether there is a willingness to pay for a solution. And what specific solution they need. Preferably a solution that is hypothetically feasible to develop and where unit economics are highly likely to work.
If there is growth potential. Meaning what is the approximate market size. A lot can be estimated with 1-2 prompts in Perplexity, but they need the data from point 1 for it to make even a rough calculation.
These are the key questions they are interested in right now. I think the rest is less important for now, but we could add more later about promotion channels and a rough cost estimate.
If we manage to find and validate such problems, I would be happy to list and sell them on ProblemHunt, acting as the platform and intermediary. I would likely take a commission of around 10% and handle all payments through myself initially to guarantee security for all parties involved.
The price for such a validated problem could be set at whatever you deem appropriate. But based on feedback from developers in the USA and EU, they are willing to pay from $500 to $10,000, provided the future startup has real potential.
Other important points:
After payment, developers need about 7 days to verify the problem's data for authenticity; otherwise, it's hard for them to just take our word for it. The key point for verification is the people experiencing the problem. If, for example, they turn out to be fake, the money is refunded.
However, if a developer does not request a refund within those 7 days, the money is not returned. If a developer suddenly claims the data doesn't match what was promised, we will definitely verify it (I will personally handle this), so we won't issue refunds arbitrarily to avoid being taken advantage of by "free-riders." On my end, I'll strive to make everything as honest and fair as possible for all parties in the transaction.
Well, I think that's pretty much it. If you're willing to collaborate with me on these terms, then I'll bring the audience and platform, and you'll bring the validated problems. You can send everything to me, and I'll publish it.
By the way, ProblemHunt's user growth on the developer side is increasing organically. I think this is because we publish non-validated problems from real people for free. Within a year, the number of developers should be many times higher, so the likelihood of more sales should increase too.
And sorry, everything is a bit messy right now because we're just trying out this monetization model. So we'll do it as we go and see what comes out of it. 😊
My Email: gostroverhovb@gmail.com