Startup or Shot in the Dark? Find Out Where You Stand

You’ve been building for months now; ideas, decks, prototypes, late nights.

But deep down, there’s that nagging question:

Am I actually solving a real problem for anyone, or am I just guessing my way through this?

I see this constantly with the founders I mentor.

One spent six full months perfecting what she called a “smart calendar app.” She launched it with excitement and then, silence. No downloads. No buzz.

Why?

Her problem statement was simply: “People are busy.”

That’s not a problem, that’s a slogan. It’s too vague. No one wakes up thinking, “I need to fix my busyness.”

She was taking shots in the dark, and it cost her time she could have used far more effectively.

And the fix is actually simple, but most people skip it because it feels slow.

Prove your problem first, before you touch code or design.

Start by writing one clear line: “I help [specific who] stop [specific pain] that hits them [when / how often] using [their current workaround].”

For example: “I help café owners stop losing 20% of orders due to messy manual tracking across paper notes and WhatsApp chats.”

See how sharp that is? You can picture the person, feel the pain, and imagine testing it tomorrow.

Next, go out and talk to 10 real people this week; not friends or fellow founders, but actual targets living with that problem.

Ask open questions:

• What’s your biggest headache with [this process]?

• How do you deal with it today?

• If someone fixed this properly, would you switch tomorrow?

I guided a restaurant founder through exactly this process. After speaking to seven managers, he kept hearing the same thing: “I lose tables every week because I forget who called to reserve, and my notebook is chaos.”

No leading questions. They said it themselves. He pivoted to a simple SMS reminder tool.

His first month? 50 paying users.

No fancy app, just solving something that genuinely burned.

Test the before / after too.

Another founder I worked with built inventory software. Her customers lit up when they heard this: “Before, I overstocked ingredients and threw money away every week. After your tool, I order exactly what sells and save 30%.”

That clarity helped her close her first enterprise deal within weeks.

If you can’t write that one line yet or if conversations don’t show clear patterns after speaking to 7+ people, you better pause the build. Go talk more. Sit with it. It may feel like a delay, but it’s actually your foundation.

A clear problem leads to a simple product that people genuinely want and are willing to pay for. Skip this step, and you’re busy… but going nowhere.

Tomorrow, just jot down that one line and call one person.

That’s real progress.
And it’s far better than another week of guessing.