What’s your problem?
Last Tuesday, I caught myself doing something ridiculous.
Copy text from Slack. Switch to TypingMind. Paste. Get AI rewrite. Copy again. Switch back. Paste.
For the tenth time. That day.
That's when I realized my daily frustration wasn't just annoying - it was trying to tell me something important.
Let me paint the full picture.
As a product manager, clear communication is my currency. Every message needs to be clear, every update needs to land right. So I found myself constantly playing this exhausting game of app-switching tennis:
Copy from Slack → Switch to TypingMind → Get AI rewrite → Switch back → Paste.
Every. Single. Time.
"It's just part of the job," I told myself. But that's exactly the kind of thinking that blinds us to opportunity.
When you notice yourself doing weird workarounds, pay attention
After the fifth time in one morning of app-switching just to give a status update to my boss, I realized I was experiencing exactly what I tell founders to look for: a persistent pain point in my own workflow.
This wasn't a "wouldn't it be nice" feature. This was a "the constant context switching is driving me nuts" problem. Each interruption broke my flow state, scattered my attention, and made simple communication tasks feel unnecessarily painful.
Building the simplest possible solution
I decided to solve it for myself. No market research needed. No user interviews. Just my own frustration and a few hours of focused coding.
The result was "Rewrite," a simple Raycast extension that lets me:
- Copy any text
- Press a keyboard shortcut
- Get an instant rewrite pasted into your current selection without ever leaving my current application
The technical implementation was straightforward. I figured out how to create a Raycast extension with their guide online and then prompted my way to a working v1 with Cursor.
No context switching. No copy-pasting. No friction!
The real lesson isn't about the tool
The point isn't that you should all go build Raycast extensions.
The point is that "solve your own problems" isn't just startup advice. It's a practical answer for identifying genuine opportunities.
- If you're creating workarounds multiple times per day
- If you find yourself saying "I wish I could just..."
- If you've normalized an inefficient process because "that's just how it works"
You've found a problem worth solving.
I'm the biggest proponent for doing research on ideas before they're built. But that research is mainly necessary when you're either making a big bet on an idea or if you aren’t part of the niche you’re building for. But when the problem hits you multiple times a day? Your lived experience becomes the most reliable data point.
Your turn: identify your own "this should be easier" moments
Grab a notebook or open the notes app on your phone and make a tally mark every time you:
- Feel a moment of friction in your workflow
- Catch yourself thinking "there must be a better way" or if you actively try to find a solution.
- Do something the long way because "that's just how it works"
Every time you find this happening, mark it on your notes. Do this for a week. At the end of your week, look at your tally. You might be shocked at how many times you're accepting inefficiency as "normal."
Then ask yourself:
- How frequently does this pain occur?
- How much time/energy does it cost me each time? And don't just think about it functionally. Think through how it makes you feel while you get it done or how it impacts you socially.
- Could you build a simple solution that eliminates this friction?
The best product opportunities often hide in plain sight, disguised as "the way things have always been done." Challenge those assumptions. The processes you've normalized might be exactly where your next great idea lies.
The tools that solve your own daily frustrations often end up resonating most powerfully with others. When you build something that genuinely makes your life better, the motivation runs deeper than just making money. You're creating value for yourself first, and that authenticity shows in the final product.
