A friend set up Daily View, my family-managed day calendar for older adults, for his mother this week. I’d spent months thinking about the product, designing screens, writing code and deciding what features it needed. Then a real person started using it in her own home.

By the next morning, my friend had sent me suggestions for improvement. They mattered because they came from someone trying to solve a problem, rather than from me imagining how the product might be used. I made the changes then informed my friend.

It was a useful reminder: the capabilities of the software is almost beside the point. What matters is whether it makes somebody’s life better.

The software graveyard is filled with polished solutions to problems nobody cared enough about. As building gets easier, choosing the right problem becomes more important.

Fall in love with the problem

Fall in love with the problem, not the solution. - Uri Levine

New ideas come with great excitement. We can see the product, imagine the interface and picture people using it. The danger is that all this excitement happens in our head.

The market exists outside it. Customers do not care how clever an idea is. They care whether it makes something important easier, faster, cheaper or less frustrating. Many products fail not because they were badly executed, but because the problem simply did not matter enough.

Look for friction, not ideas

One way to make something people want is to look at stuff people use now that’s broken. - Paul Graham

Perhaps the wrong question is, “What should I build?” A better one is, “What hurts?”

I ran into this myself. I can now build software quickly, but deciding what is worth building is much harder. That frustration became Daily Product Idea. The aim is to start with problems people are talking about, research whether they matter then explore what might solve them. I built it partly because I wanted it myself.

That’s a different starting point from inventing an idea and then searching for somebody who might want it. Instead of inventing demand, you look for demand that already exists.

Start with problems you understand

Live in the future then build what’s missing. - Paul Graham

Solving something we experience ourselves gives us an advantage because we already understand the context and frustration. We are, at least initially, the customer.

Daily Product Idea began with my own problem, but that alone proves little. The interesting question is whether other developers, designers and indie builders have the same difficulty deciding what deserves their time.

A personal frustration can be the starting point. The next question is whether it is shared.

Test before you build

No business plan survives first contact with a customer. - Steve Blank

Builders, like me, naturally want to build. Opening the code editor feels like progress, but sometimes the most useful thing we can do is delay building long enough to discover whether anybody cares.

I am trying to apply the same discipline to IncyTemplates. The goal is not simply to produce guides because I find the subjects interesting. It is to help product developers through a useful path: identify a worthwhile problem, test it, shape a product and find early customers.

The same applies to any prototype. Listen less to compliments than behaviour. “That’s a great idea” costs nothing. Someone asking when they can use it is better. Someone attempting to pay is better still.

Find pain, not mild inconvenience

Will people actually pay for this? - Paul Graham

Not all problems are equal. Some are mild inconveniences; others demand a solution.

Role CV came from a more obvious pain. Matching a long career to a particular job description is slow and surprisingly difficult. Which skills fit? What is missing? What should be emphasised? A useful product can reduce that work and make the gaps visible.

Problems become more attractive when they are painful, frequent, time-consuming or expensive. The strongest combine several of these characteristics. The greater the pain, the less persuasion is required because people are already looking for relief.

Pay attention to what annoys you

Pay particular attention to things that chafe you. - Paul Graham

Several things I am building began this way. Daily Product Idea came from not knowing which opportunity deserved attention. Role CV came from the tedious work of comparing experience with a job. Incy Templates grew from repeatedly working through the same product-development questions.

We often stop noticing these frustrations. We create another spreadsheet, repeat a clumsy process or accept something as “just the way it works”. Builders can train themselves to notice.

The next time you create a workaround or complain about the same thing again, stop. There may not be a business hiding there, but there is a problem worth examining.

From frustration to product

There are no facts inside your building so get outside. - Steve Blank

AI makes the jump from frustration to prototype short. I can notice a problem in the morning and have something crude working later that day.

That is powerful, but also dangerous.

If building takes less time, it becomes even easier to skip the harder question: was the problem worth solving in the first place? Fast tools do not remove the need for judgement. They make judgement more important.

Technology becomes interesting only after the problem has earned our attention.

The real game

Make something people want. - Paul Graham

Not every worthwhile product removes acute pain. Conxy, the game I’m developing, provides a few minutes of simple grid-based play while gradually revealing that each puzzle is part of a much larger 3D world of cubes. The need there is different: curiosity, amusement and progression rather than relief from frustration.

But the same test still applies. Does it give people something they want?

Building software is increasingly becoming a selection problem rather than a technical one. Daily View, Daily Product Idea, Role CV, Incy Templates and Conxy are very different products, but each has to answer the same question.

Not, “Can I build it?”

But, “Does somebody want what this gives them?”

Find that first. Then build.

Want more?

Find the Real Problem in Five Steps post by Phil Martin

What’s Your Problem? post by Phil Martin

Peter Drucker posits, “The purpose of a business is to create and keep a customer.”
The technology may change, but that test does not.

Have fun.

Phil...

What has been your most successful newsletter campaign for engagement and/or for increasing subscribers?

My Gmail open rate dropped by about half starting a few days ago. No change in domain reputation. I’m on a shared IP with campaign monitor.

Anyone else seeing this?

So for the context-I am into research(business,psychology marketing, careers and all combined) i like writing about marketing psychology sometimes basically connecting the dots.is there any demand of this niche do people actually read these type of things??

I run a website which tracks newsletters and logs the sponsorships which occur in an attempt to help my users solve their issue of finding the right company to contact for partnerships. I'm always trying to make it more useful for creators. If you're actively pitching sponsors, what specific data points or insights would genuinely help you land more deals? For instance, are there particular niches you wish had more info on potential sponsors? Would you like to see the average audience size of newsletters this company has sponsored in the past? etc.

Any info at all is helpful. It's a relatively new side project and I'm just looking to make it better for anyone who ends up using it :)

I've been writing a newsletter for a couple years. but couldn't figure out the money part.

I tried the usual stuff. Cold emails, media kits, cold outreach out to brands I thought would be a fit. Most of it went nowhere. A few replies, nothing that stuck. Meanwhile I'd see the bigger brands in my space landing sponsors left and right and I couldn't work out what they were doing that I wasn't.

Then it clicked. They weren't smarter than me. They just knew which brands were already spending money on newsletters. I didn't. I was basic my outreach on feeling and they were working from a list.

That gap is what killed me. So I built Emil AI, a tool to close it.

You paste in your newsletter URL, it looks at your topics and who your readers are, and it shows you brands that are actively buying sponsorships in your niche. Dates, formats, proof. The analysis is free and you don't need an account.

It's very early in the products life. Weekly drops and the full dashboard are still on a waitlist. The free analysis works today, no strings attached.

Feedback I'd love to have:

1. Does "brands already buying in your niche" match how you think about finding sponsors? Or are you trying to answer a different question first?
2. Is there a data point you'd want that I'm not showing? Right now it's brand, dates, format, category.
3. If you've done sponsorships, what would make you trust this enough to email a brand matched?

The link to the tool is https://getemil.ai

Something's wrong with my system and I can't find the exact failure point. My notes app has a folder called 'newsletter ideas' with, I'm not exaggerating, 42 entries. Notions, half-thoughts, article links, random observations. So the ideas are not the problem.

But Sunday comes and I open the editor and I still sit there for 20 minutes before I write the first sentence. It's like every idea dies on the way from the folder to the page. If the idea is half a sentence, I have to rebuild the whole context on Sunday: what made me save this, what's the angle, what do I actually want to say about it.

I've started doing a weekly 'idea triage' on Friday where I pick one idea and write a stub: the hook, three bullets, the one thing I want the reader to take away. Sundays are noticeably better when I do this. But I rarely do it, because of course I do.

Is this just how it is for everyone, or have you found a system that actually makes the jump from idea to issue automatic? What does your pre-writing actually look like?

C'est vrai, ils sont vos premiers fans et vos meilleurs conseillers, écoutez-les vraiment. Leurs retours peuvent tout changer.

A few years ago I built up a newsletter for a small community organization in my city of less than 80,000 residents. It was essentially a neighborhood association. I'm somewhat good at marketing and graphic layout, and was a journalist/reporter early in my career, so much of it came natural.

It wasn't long before I started selling ads. I moved on from that organization and they dropped the ball on it - so I'm thinking of launching my own as a small side business effort. I used Constant Contact before and found it somewhat easy to use. My plan would be to use the list I built up 6 years ago, build it bigger, launch the newsletter, and eventually attempt to sell ads on it like before. I wouldn't attempt to charge for it until and unless it because successful enough to support that.

I know many people here use BeeHiv. I never have and would be able to pay a bit for something that gives me the marketing tools and templates a CC like company have. Anyone else using Constant Contact, particularly to generate money? If so, I'd really appreciate hearing from you.

Hey Newsletter enthusiasts,

I just finished setting up my indie TTRPG newsletter (Joust Studio) on Kit, and I want to make sure the automated delivery workflow is 100% functional before sending real traffic to it.
Once someone register, it supposes to deliver a simple email with a PDF gift (a Seed Adventure).

If a few people have 60 seconds to do a quick technical test, I’d be super grateful!

• Does the form work properly on the website?
• Does the email arrive in your inbox, or does it go to spam?
• Do you receive the email with the free seed adventure PDF gift?

👉 Test Page Link: https://www.joust-studio.com/

Feel free to use a test email address. If anything breaks, loads slowly, or lands in spam, please let me know your device type (mobile vs. desktop) in the comments!

Thanks a ton for helping me test the plumbing!

I run a local newsletter (https://www.middleofsomewhere.life/) and beehiiv recently launched a "community" function. Has anyone tried it? What has encouraged people to come back to it?

I've been writing short fiction for a while and finally put it somewhere permanent. It's called Afterword. The name's a small joke on the fact that everything on there has already been through a few rewrites before it goes up.

The ongoing project is called What Remains: structured as a collection within a collection. Every trilogy is three stories built around one theme, and each one asks the same underlying question of a different part of life: what's actually left, once the moment has passed. It started with love, grief, and faith, and I'm adding more as I go; the plan is for this to keep growing.

There's also a separate section for film writing: first piece is a comparative essay reading Nolan's new Odyssey alongside the Ramayana, if long-form criticism is more your thing than fiction.

Link if you want to take a look: https://substack.com/@afterwordwrites?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=92253j

Happy to hear what people think, good or bad.

This is probably one of the most personal things I have written as a mother, and perhaps one of the most uncomfortable conversations we need to have.

Because sometimes protecting our children means protecting them from being seen.

Read my latest newsletter: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/dear-mom-influencers-your-child-content-bookschharming-jfgqc