[1hakr]

When I see a potential problem, see if I can solve it. See if it's already being solved, if not I pitch the idea to few people. If at least 50% got excited. I pick this idea to build.

You can find problems in your day to day life. Travelling is another way of discovering new problems. Every problem is not worth building a solution for. Only the burning ones with business potential.

[bgdam]

> See if it's already being solved, if not I pitch the idea to few people.

And how do you find these 'few people' to pitch to? You would have to find the right people with skin in the game, who are actually impacted by this right? How do you do that? For me, this has always been the part I could never crack.

[halpert]

If you don't have first-hand contact with your potential users, and you don't know where they are, then you likely lack the empathy to build a great product for them.

[TOGoS]

For anyone scrolling by and getting sucker punched by halpert here, I'd like you to know that not being surrounded by people whose problems can be solved with software startups doesn't mean you 'lack empathy'.

[cloverich]

I think boffinism's comment below hits it, but to also add -- its important to try and find a charitable interpretation of comments when possible. Here I think empathy was meant literally as understanding other people's needs and points of view. If you don't know people with some problem directly, and also don't know how to find them -- how sure are you that the problem you are solving is real and in need of a practical solution? You have to understand user needs very well to build a novel product that people want to use. Its not about software startups solving the worlds problems -- I think its just a very general point about solving problems you understand and not ones you don't have any experience with.

To give a more concrete example, I know of a successul life insurance company. It was started because the founders had a bad experience with purchasing life insurance. They then worked with (and as) life insurance agents to better understand the customer (and insurer's) needs. THEN they built a company, one solution at a time.

[TOGoS]

Even in the most charitable sense, it's still a worse-than-useless comment.

Q: I am having trouble with X; do you have any tips?

A: You are bad at X (but rephrased to make it sound like a character judgement).

[cloverich]

Q: I am having trouble understanding why people think / do X A: You should talk to people who think / do X and ask them why they think / do X. Until you do so, you lack sufficient empathy to address their issues / change their behavior.

Its good feedback that it is worded in a way that has ambiguous meanings, one of which (you are a sociopath) is an unwelcome character judgement. But IMHO the charitable interpretation is perfectly practical and important feedback: Don't build products for users you can't talk to and learn from.

[boffinism]

I feel like 'and you don't know where they are' is maybe the redeeming phrase in halpert's post. If you have an idea that you think would help some people, and you have no idea where such people are concentrated... maybe it's a sign you don't know enough about said people to really be able to help them?

[axiosgunnar]

He did not say „lack empathy, making you a bad person“.

He said „lack empathy for building this particular type of software“, meaning you would not be getting enough emotional feedback (due to lack of connections).