The five-question filter

These are the five questions I run every candidate problem through before I build anything. You can answer them in an afternoon of thinking, not a month of research. Use the filter when you have a few problems in mind and need to find out which ones deserve your time.

Type straight into the sheet or print it blank. What you type stays in this browser and is never sent anywhere.

The Code Was Never the Hard Part

The five-question filter

One problem per sheet. Answer in one line each, in the words of the people who have it.

The problem

Do the people who have it know they have it?

If your first task is convincing them the problem is real, you've picked a race with a mountain at the start line.
Are they already paying to cope with it?

Tools, services, freelancers, their own hours. Existing spend proves the pain is real and budgeted.
Can you reach them?

Name the channel. Where do they gather, what do they read, who do they listen to?
Does the problem come back?

Weekly beats yearly. Daily beats weekly. One-time problems make one-time customers.
Do you have an edge?

Whatever others can't copy: your understanding, network, taste, distribution, credibility.

A problem doesn't need a perfect score. But a clear no on reach or on existing pain kills the candidate on the spot.

neverthehardpart.com/templates/five-question-filter

How to use it

Before you filter anything, write down which race you're running (a side product, a new venture, or a credibility play) and your real constraints: hours a week you can sustain, money you can lose without stress, months before you need to see a signal.
Run problems you have actually observed through it, not ideas from a brainstorm. A problem exists whether or not you build anything, so it gives you something to study. One problem per sheet.
Answer each question in one line, in the words of the people who have the problem.
Kill any candidate with a clear no on reach or on existing pain. Ruling candidates out is what the filter is for.
Take the survivors into real conversations. The conversation guide is the next step.

The five questions

1. Do the people who have it know they have it?

There's a special graveyard for products that solve problems people don't know they have. Education is the most expensive form of marketing that exists. If your first task is convincing people the problem is real, you've chosen a race with a mountain at the start line. Pick problems people already complain about in their own words.

2. Are they already paying to cope with it?

Payment is the strongest signal in business. Not payment for your future product, but payment for anything that touches the problem today: tools, services, freelancers, hours of their own time. "This would be nice" isn't a market. "We pay someone to do this manually every week" is.

3. Can you reach them?

Answer specifically: where do these people gather, what do they read, who do they listen to? If you can't name the channel, you don't have a distribution plan yet. A mediocre product with a clear path to its audience beats a great product with no path, every time. That's why distribution belongs at the choosing stage, not after launch.

4. Does the problem come back?

One-time problems make one-time customers, and one-time customers make brutal businesses. Recurring problems make products people return to, and returning is where trust and revenue live. Weekly beats yearly. Daily beats weekly.

5. Do you have an edge?

When building is cheap, anyone can copy your feature list in weeks. Your protection is whatever they can't copy: your understanding of the customer, your network in the industry, your taste, your distribution, your credibility. If you can't name your edge for this specific problem, someone with an edge will pass you.

Where question five caught me

Run the filter on Videofy, the video startup I co-founded, and the first four questions come back fine. Question five flashes red. Our real edge against Instagram and YouTube was that we were early and we moved fast. That isn't an edge, it's a head start, and head starts expire. When the giants turned their attention to video, they could copy everything we had in a quarter, and we couldn't match anything they had.

From chapter 2, "Pick your race".