Should I Build This? The Question 100 Outsiders Asked Me This Year

I've had some version of this conversation over 100 times this year.

A lawyer, a sales manager, a nurse, a logistics coordinator — someone with deep experience in a specific field — comes to me with an idea. They've spotted a real problem. They've even thought about a solution. And then they ask me: "Should I build this?"

My honest answer, every single time: I don't know yet. But we can find out in about 10 minutes.

Here's what I've noticed: most people asking that question aren't looking for a business plan. They're looking for permission — or for someone to save them from a mistake. Both are valid. And both deserve a better answer than a gut feeling.

The idea maze nobody warns you about

There's a specific trap that catches most first-time builders. I call it the idea maze: you have an idea, you start researching it, you find competitors, you second-guess yourself, you pivot slightly, you research that version, you find more competitors, and six weeks later you haven't built anything.

The idea maze isn't a lack of motivation. It's a lack of clarity on the right question to answer first. And the right question isn't "will this succeed?" — it's "is this worth the next 2 weeks of my attention?"

That's a much more answerable question. And it changes everything.

The 6 things I actually check

Over time, my 10-minute conversation evolved into a consistent framework. I ask about 6 things, and the pattern of answers tells me almost everything I need to know:

1. The problem is real and specific. Not "people are disorganized" — "solo designers spend 45 minutes a day copy-pasting client feedback from email into Notion, and miss things." Specificity is the single biggest signal. Vague problems produce solutions nobody pays for.

2. It hurts frequently, not occasionally. A problem that happens once a year is very different from one that happens every Monday morning. Frequency determines whether someone will actually change their behavior to use your tool.

3. The audience is a person, not a category. "Small businesses" is not an audience. "Freelance UX designers with 3+ clients who invoice monthly" is. The more specifically you can describe the first person who would pay for this, the more likely it is you actually understand the problem.

4. You have some edge here. Not necessarily technical — domain knowledge counts. If you're a nurse who wants to build something for nurses, that's a huge advantage. You understand the workflow, the language, the politics. That's worth more than being a good developer.

5. There are early signals of demand. Reddit threads, Facebook groups, freelancers charging for manual workarounds, overpriced enterprise tools that people hate but use anyway — any of these count. If nobody is currently trying to solve this problem in some way, that's a red flag, not a green light.

6. You'll still care in 6 months. Building takes longer than you think. The ideas that get finished are the ones built by people who genuinely care about the problem — not the ones chasing a market opportunity.

What a strong signal actually looks like

The ideas that score well across all 6 dimensions share a pattern: the founder is usually an insider to the problem. They've lived it. They have opinions about the existing solutions that are too expensive, too generic, or too complicated for their specific context.

They don't need to be validated — they need to be told it's safe to start. The framework gives them that.

The ideas that score poorly usually have one of two problems: the problem is real but the audience is too broad ("anyone who does invoicing"), or the audience is specific but the problem isn't painful enough to change behavior for ("it would be nice if..."). Both are fixable — but only if you catch them before you spend 3 months building.

The question behind the question

Here's what I've realized after 100+ of these conversations: the people who ask "should I build this?" are already doing something right. They're not just jumping in blindly. They're looking for a reality check before they commit.

That instinct is correct. The mistake is looking for that reality check in the wrong places — asking friends who don't want to discourage you, or spending weeks on a business plan that doesn't actually tell you if anyone wants the thing.

The right place to start is with 12 honest questions and about 2 minutes of your time.

Ready to answer the question for your own idea?

2 minutes. 12 questions. Free scorecard with AI insights.

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