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For years I've sold founders a research membership called Trends Pro.
Now I'm changing what it sells. Before I pick the new offer, I want to know what makes an offer strong. So I made a list of what I look for in a problem worth solving: how often it comes up, how much it's worth, whether it's growing, how many people have it and who pays.
Eric Remeis's landscaping company in Ohio started out designing and building yards. A customer usually paid for that once. Since he needed customers who pay again, he moved the company into maintenance and snow removal in 2016.
After the switch his company grew about 32% a year for the next 3 years.
Adam Markowitz first built a free online portfolio for students called Portfolium. Universities had no budget to pay for it. Each sale to one was a grind.
Next he started Drata to automate compliance work that software companies need done and hate doing. Drata signed 100 customers in its first 6 weeks.
Ira Bodnar's startup Ryze let businesses hand their Google and Meta ad accounts to an AI that ran their campaigns. Ryze closed 70% of the prospects it pitched.
Then the AI assistants Claude and Manus added a way to plug straight into a Meta ad account and analyze it. Ryze's close rate fell to 20%. One morning Bodnar posted, "Claude killed my startup." Part of what Ryze sold was now a feature inside Claude.
Rashid Ali co-founded Chomps to sell meat sticks to what he calls diet tribes: people who do CrossFit or eat paleo, keto or Whole30. For 4 years Chomps sold straight to those buyers online.
Trader Joe's then put the meat sticks on its shelves in front of everyday grocery shoppers. Within a year the business grew tenfold.
To renew a license in many states, a real estate agent has to finish approved courses. Michael McAllister started The CE Shop to sell those courses to agents online. A course that's nice to have has to win each buyer over.
Agents needed these to keep selling houses.
He grew The CE Shop for 15 years on the money it earned. A private equity firm later bought it in what McAllister calls a nine-figure exit.
Denis Iurchak made his calls over Skype when he traveled. When Microsoft announced it was closing Skype, a lot of its users were angry.
Within days Iurchak launched a calling app for the web browser called Yadaphone. He built it in a weekend and posted it on Reddit.
He saw his first Stripe payment minutes later. In its sixth month Yadaphone made $13,300.
Cheryl Krueger sold her first cookies to shoppers at a store she opened. In its first year the store brought in more than $400,000.
Later she took the cookies to a trade show for airline buyers. American, Delta and US Airways ordered $5 million worth.
Deanna Jump taught first grade in Macon, Georgia, for about $55,000 a year and struggled to pay the bills. A fellow teacher kept urging her to sell her lesson plans on TeachersPayTeachers. Teachers already go there to buy materials for their classes.
Within 2 years Jump earned her first $1 million.
Farzad Rashidi's company sold an outreach tool called Respona that customers ran themselves. For years its revenue stalled at a few hundred thousand dollars a year. Customers who cancelled told him, "We're just not using it enough."
One marketing agency's CEO tried to haggle the price down to $500 and offered to pay for results instead. Rashidi's team did the outreach for the agency. The agency's spend grew to about $65,000 a month.
Ric Cabot's family mill in Vermont knit socks for other companies' store brands. One by one those customers left for cheaper factories overseas. The mill defaulted on its loans.
In 2004 Cabot launched a brand called Darn Tough and guaranteed each pair for life. Few pairs come back. Darn Tough's sales grew 50 to 60% a year for most of its first 11 years.
A professional headshot has meant booking a photographer, sitting for the shoot and waiting for the edits. Ricardo Ghekiere started BetterPic to turn a few uploaded selfies into professional headshots in about half an hour.
By April 2025 BetterPic brought in $275,000 a month.
Work on a less valuable problem or a shrinking one and everything you do inside it may go to waste.
What more valuable problem could you start working on?