I’ve worked with thousands of founders, and I’ve seen the same scenario play out again and again: a team spends months building a beautiful app that nobody ends up using. Nine times out of ten, it comes down to one simple but devastating oversight: they never properly defined the problem they were solving.

A clear, concise problem statement is the foundation of a winning startup idea. It defines the real pain your customers feel, and helps your team stay laser-focused on building the right solution.

This article will help you write one.

We’ll show you:

• What a startup problem statement is

• The simple 3-part formula to craft yours

• Mistakes to avoid

• 5 real-world examples from billion-dollar startups

Let’s get into it.

Why a Clear Problem Statement Is the Most Valuable Asset in Your Startup Toolkit

Let me be blunt. If you don’t have a clear, focused problem statement, you’re not building a startup — you’re building a gamble.

Your problem statement is the north star that keeps your team aligned, your product relevant, and your marketing razor-sharp. It helps you:

• Focus your app scope (no feature bloat!)

• Identify your early adopters

• Communicate your value clearly to investors

• Validate whether your idea is even worth building

I’ve spent over a decade helping non-technical founders turn ideas into successful no-code apps, and I can tell you with certainty: the difference between the ones that succeed and the ones that fizzle is that successful founders deeply understand the problem they’re solving.

What Is a Startup Problem Statement? (And What Isn't)

A problem statement is a 1–2 sentence description of a specific pain that a group of people experience — and that you intend to solve with your product or service.

It’s not about your solution. It’s about the why behind it.

✅ Good problem statement:

“Small online retailers are losing sales due to low website load speeds, especially on mobile — costing them 15–30% in revenue during peak traffic.”

❌ Bad problem statement:

“We’re building a next-gen website optimizer for ecommerce.”

If your statement contains the words “app,” “platform,” or “AI-powered,” you’re already off track.

Let’s look at a few real-world examples:

• Instagram: “Mobile photos don’t look great, uploads take a long time, and it’s hard to share them with friends.”

• Stripe: “It’s stupidly complicated for developers to accept payments online.”

• Robinhood: “Young professionals want to invest, but trading commissions make it too expensive to get started.”

See the pattern? These aren’t product pitches — they’re frustrations.

The Trap of Building Without Clarity

Most founders don’t realise they’ve skipped this step. They jump straight into thinking about features or naming their startup. I get it — building is exciting. But I’ve seen what happens when you skip the groundwork.

I worked with a founder a few years ago who wanted to build a social app for dog lovers. It had everything: profile pages, event listings, even a built-in shop. But when we tried to define the problem they were solving, they couldn’t answer a simple question:

“Why would someone download this?”

After digging deeper, we discovered that dog owners were actually struggling with one very specific issue: finding reliable local dog walkers. That insight could have shaped the whole product — but by the time they realised, they’d already spent their budget building the wrong thing.

The 3-Part Formula for a Great Problem Statement

1. Who is experiencing the problem?

2. What specific pain are they feeling?

3. Why does it matter (emotional and/or quantifiable impact)?

Use this template:

[Persona] struggles with [pain], which causes [impact].

Example:

“Freelance designers waste 8+ hours a week managing feedback from clients, leading to delayed projects and reduced income.”

Real-World Startup Problem Statements

Here are five problem statements that launched unicorns — pulled from early founder interviews, pitch decks, and product pages:

1. Stripe

Customer: Developers at early-stage startups
Problem: Accepting payments online was stupidly complicated to set up.
Quote: “They debated why it was so difficult to accept payments on the web. They sought to solve the problem and see if it was possible to make it simple — really simple.”

2. Instagram

Customer: Amateur photographers already on social media
Problem: Mobile photos looked crappy, they were time-consuming to upload and difficult to share.
Quote: “We really wanted to allow you to share to multiple services at once... and mobile photos don’t look great.”

3. Airbnb

Customer: Conference attendees visiting San Francisco
Problem: Hotels were sold out, and the founders were broke and struggling to make rent.
Quote: “Designers who want to come last minute won’t have a place to stay. I looked around the living room and thought: We have space, and airbeds.”

4. Intercom

Customer: Startup founders
Problem: Customer chat tools were faceless and cold.
Quote: “It felt gross. You’d get referred to a nameless email account and become a ticket number.”

5. Canva

Customer: Non-designer professionals like marketers and business owners
Problem: Professional design tools were too hard to learn.
Quote: “It would take a whole semester just to learn the basics of Photoshop. Most people just want to create something great without the complexity.”

Avoid These Common Mistakes

I’ve read hundreds of problem statements, and I can tell you where most of them go wrong. Watch out for these traps:

❌ Jumping to solutions
Stick to the pain — not your product.

❌ Being too vague
“People hate budgeting” is lazy. Be specific: who, why, how much it matters.

❌ Solving for a ‘nice-to-have’
If the pain isn’t urgent or expensive — it’s not worth building for.

❌ Trying to serve everyone
Start niche. You can always expand later.

Your problem statement is not a marketing slogan. It’s a diagnostic tool.

From Statement to Scope

Once you’ve nailed your problem statement, the next step is to scope your solution as tightly as possible around it.

Here’s a typical transformation we see with founders we work with:

Before:

“We want to build a platform where parents can discover local events, book babysitters, chat with other parents, and swap toys.”

After working with us:

“New parents in urban areas struggle to find reliable last-minute childcare. They’re anxious about leaving their child with a stranger, and current platforms feel impersonal and risky. We’re building a simple tool to help parents book pre-vetted sitters in their postcode, fast.”

That level of clarity transforms everything — your MVP scope, your landing page copy, your investor pitch. And more importantly, it makes sure you're building something people actually want.

Ready to turn your problem into a no-code MVP?

If there’s one lesson we've learned from helping 1,900+ founders scope,build and launch their apps, it’s this:

When founders let go of “my idea” and start obsessing over “their problem,” that’s when the magic happens. You build leaner. You validate faster. You serve better.

If you’re struggling to define your problem statement — or unsure if your idea is solving anything real — grab our App Scoping eBook. It’s the exact process we use to help founders turn ideas into functioning apps and businesses.

Or, if you want to shortcut the whole process, you could let us fix that. We can help your startups go from problem to prototype — fast.

👉 Check more recommended resources to Start, Launch and Grow your SaaS:

• Building Your No-Code MVP: A Complete Guide to Launch Within the Next 60 Days

• Mastering App Scoping: The Only Guide You'll Need as A First Time Founder

• Launch to Lift-Off: Maximising Your MVP's Market Entrance