Faina Shpund

Helping early-stage solo founders & solopreneurs figure out what to build and whether it's the right thing.
Product judgment + validation|

[Faina Shpund @HeyFaina]

I made a short video that walks through how to tell if you're solving a problem people actually have, or one you just assumed they did.
Watch it here: https://t.co/5yAtSQ4S3Q

[Faina Shpund @HeyFaina]

"Am I building the right thing?" is the question every founder circles and few answer honestly.

I made a short video walking through how to check.

Reply "VIDEO" and it's yours.

[Faina Shpund @HeyFaina]

@2600Hz_ "Can I build it" only asks something about you. "Should I build it" asks something about someone else, and that's exactly why it's less fun, there's a person in the way now who might say no.

[Faina Shpund @HeyFaina]

@founder_sohan Using it yourself catches rough edges. It won't catch the thing you've gotten used to that a stranger would bounce off immediately. That's the part only someone outside your head can tell you.

[Faina Shpund @HeyFaina]

@wilczyn User requests and whatever's broken look the same on a list but aren't. A request is what someone thinks they want. Broken is what's actually stopping them, and it's usually the one worth building first even when nobody asked for it directly.

[Faina Shpund @HeyFaina]

@marcusleovn Charging double only works once you have proof people will actually pay it, not just a feeling that it's comfortable. Test the higher number on five real conversations before committing, because guessing upward is still guessing.

[Faina Shpund @HeyFaina]

@Kristen20051 A, underneath all the others. Getting attention, explaining the product, converting, retaining, none of it matters if the people on the other end were never the right ones to begin with. Wrong audience makes every later step harder than it needs to be.

[Faina Shpund @HeyFaina]

@sarkerium Curious but not buying is the tell everyone reads as almost there. It usually just means the reply cost nothing and the price does. The real test isn't whether people respond, it's whether they'd still say yes once money is on the table.

[Faina Shpund @HeyFaina]

@iamericpereira Forty thousand users telling you what to build is still just noise until you weight it by who's actually paying versus who's just loud. The users worth listening to first are usually the smallest, most specific group, not the biggest one shouting the same request.

[Faina Shpund @HeyFaina]

@Anas_founder The feature that gets built first is usually the one closest to a specific person who already asked for it by name. Not the roadmap item that sounds most important, the one tied to someone real who's waiting on it.

[Faina Shpund @HeyFaina]

Starting from a revenue goal instead of a person with a problem is usually why the stuck feeling happens in the first place. Pick five people whose work you already understand, and ask what they're duct-taping together right now. That gives you something to build. A dollar target doesn't.

[Faina Shpund @HeyFaina]

@AISaaSLaunchpad Explaining the offer clearly is usually the one people skip past fastest, and it's often the actual reason getting first users feels so hard. If someone can't tell what it does in one sentence, no amount of outreach fixes that.

[Faina Shpund @HeyFaina]

@mustaphaDevFS D, first. Your network already trusts you, so it's the fastest way to a real yes or no. Cold DMs work better once you've done that once, because you'll know exactly what to say instead of guessing at the pitch.

[Faina Shpund @HeyFaina]

@david_nwobia @ChadAppDev Forty free users and none paying usually means the price was never actually tested, just skipped. Pick five of them, ask directly if they'd pay for what they're using now, and the ones who hesitate are telling you exactly where the gap is.

[Faina Shpund @HeyFaina]

@Its_abdullahdev B, by far. Building and pricing are decisions you can make alone at a desk. Finding customers means someone else has to say yes, and that's the part with no shortcut and no version of it that gets easier just because you tried harder on the product.

[Faina Shpund @HeyFaina]

@imrajpattanayak E, mostly. Pay people directly to do the thing your idea would automate, even badly. That $1,000 goes further as proof someone will pay for the outcome than as an ad budget or a feature nobody's asked to see yet.

[Faina Shpund @HeyFaina]

@YaramasaGautham A waitlist tells you people are curious. Outreach tells you if the problem is real when you push on it. Those aren't ranked steps, they're testing two completely different things, and a lot of founders only realize the gap after they've already built.

[Faina Shpund @HeyFaina]

@vininathan Honest conversations only work if you ask about what they already do, not what they'd want. People are generous with opinions about a future product and much more accurate about a problem they're currently stuck with today.

[Faina Shpund @HeyFaina]

@jingar_rav86619 Prepaying has nothing to do with experience. You're not proving you can build it yet, just that the problem is real enough for someone to pay before it exists. Talk to five people who feel it and ask if they'd hand over money today for a fix.

[Faina Shpund @HeyFaina]

Ten minutes turns a hope into something you can check against the world.

What's the problem that made you start building?

[Faina Shpund @HeyFaina]

The origin story trap, and how to escape it in 10 minutes.

It's the quiet reason a lot of good founders build the wrong thing.👇

[Faina Shpund @HeyFaina]

The fix: rewrite the pitch as a claim about a specific person, mid-task, in their world.

Not "I was frustrated by X" but "someone doing Y hits this exact wall."

Now it's testable. You can go find that person.