TL;DR — you can get the answer right here, no scrolling, no time wasted:
Since the days of merchants and markets, business has followed simple rules. The 3 brutal steps to turn ideas into cash are simple: Find a Problem, Find the Solution, and Get Hard Proof!
Step 1: Find a Real Problem
Stop guessing or brainstorming what users “might need.” Most ideas fail because they chase symptoms or trends, not actual pain. Look for friction people pay for, pain points they can’t ignore, and situations that create urgency. Cash follows real problems, not clever concepts.
Teams and businesses overthink everything: who are our users, what do they need, which strategy should we follow, what are out metrics to chase. Countless meetings, endless discussions — all while opportunities sit outside the room.
The truth: real problems are spotted only when you leave the meeting room and start talking to people. That’s where opportunity lives.
But how do you find a real-world problem worth solving — and, just as importantly, one that’s actually viable?
A viable problem is one that causes enough “pain” that people are willing to pay to get it solved.
Example of a non-viable problem: bathroom mirrors that fog after a shower. Annoying? Sure. But is it painful enough to pay for? Not really — you can wipe it, use soap, wait a bit, or just go to another mirror. The problem exists, but granural solutions towards it already reduce the pain so much that it’s unlikely anyone would pay to fix it.
Now let’s look at a viable problem: slipping in the bathroom — it can cause serious injuries or even death. This is a problem people truly want to avoid, and they’re willing to pay for solutions rather than risk hospital visits or costly therapy.
How do we know this is actually a real problem?
Sure, you might think: “I have this problem, but do most people?” Are we talking 100, 1,000, a whole city, or even worldwide?
MBA programs and product courses will tell you to run surveys, interviews, and gather tons of data. We say: skip all that. Instead, do a quick online search — look for existing businesses, solutions, or statistics on the problem. That’s usually enough to see if it’s real and if people are discussing or even paying to solve it.
Sure, you might stumble on problems that aren’t yet solved or have no businesses offering a solution — be careful. These are often traps: someone already realized they’re not monetizable, too costly to solve, or the market is too small. It’s rare that no one has ever thought of a problem or its solution — most problems and solutions have already been noticed or attempted.
We advise, also based on benchmarks by other founders, that a problem is viable if at least 50-100 people have spotted the same issue and that some of them are even trying to solve it. Such number is big enough in order to draw relevant conclusions from and later use to verify if your solution is actually working.
Step 2: Find the Solution That Actually Works
Once you are sure a problem needs an urgent solution, look for people who have already tried to solve it — these are called “Lead Users.”
They are individuals who have faced this problem for a long time and attempted to fix it or made workarounds. Some may be hobbyists, others with engineering or technical backgrounds. Most of the time, their goal isn’t to monetize the solution but simply to relieve their own pain. Often, their solutions aren’t perfect and may be improvised or made with homemade materials.
It might take some time to find them, since they aren’t seeking fame online or running blogs about their inventions. They are ordinary people living their lives.
It’s important to get in touch with them and talk about the exact pain they’re experiencing and how they’re currently solving it. In this way you will find out what it actually could take to solve that, is it solved well, what could be the costs, can it be improved, etc.
We advise that you talk to 1–3 such users. Why so few? Simple — lead users are rare. Later, once you’ve built a solution, they’ll be among the first to try it out. They are your early adopters, the ones who validate your solution before anyone else. Usually from the 50-100 people you searched for, a few of them might have already attempted to solve the problem.
Step 3: Get Hard Proof — Cash in Hand
Once you have found a solution, build an MVP (Minimum Viable Product) yourself that solves the problem. MVP is the quickest, minimal product that addresses the problem fully.
We recommend that you spend no more than 1-2 weeks to build such a solution. There are different methods on how to build a prototypes, however, this is a topic for another article.
In most cases, you’ll either improve on a solution your lead users created or come up with a better approach. The goal here is simple: get paid in cash — also called “skin in the game.” No other metric beats money in hand. Build your solution to test whether people will pay you to solve their problem.
Once you have something ready, show it or give it to the people who had the problem — remember the 50–100 people you identified in Step 2.
Here’s where the magic happens: these users will ask how much it costs right away. When they pay, you get real proof. The more people pay, the stronger the signal that this can become a viable business.
What’s next?
Gather their feedback, refine your product, and iterate. This lays the foundation for a stronger, more viable business in the long run.
