Charging for advice made MORE people ask, not fewer

Building an async Q&A platform for professionals with my co-founder. Been wrestling with positioning for months.

Started with the obvious angle: "Experts are overwhelmed by 'pick your brain' requests. Let them charge."

Made sense. We're both operators with 20+ years experience. I tracked it once — 70+ hours of free advice in a year. Maybe 10% of people did anything with it.

But the "monetize your expertise" pitch wasn't landing.

Talked to dozens of people. Then heard something that flipped it:

"I wanted to ask you something months ago but didn't want to bother you."

"I didn't know if you'd even be open to questions."

"Honestly, I'd rather pay €50 than feel like I'm begging for a favor."

That last one broke my brain.

We'd been focused on expert pain: "Stop giving away free advice."

But there's equal pain on the asker side: "I want to ask but I don't know if they're open. Asking for free feels like imposing."

The two-sided problem:

→ Expert: "I want to help but can't say yes to everyone. Need a filter that doesn't make me a jerk. And I can't give everyone an hour of my calendar."

→ Asker: "I want to ask but don't know if they're open. Don't want to feel like I'm begging. And I feel bad asking for their time."

The insight: two things remove the friction.

Price — not about the €50. It's a signal. For experts: "I'm open." For askers: "You're welcome to ask." Clears the social awkwardness.

Async — no scheduling, no calendar tetris. Expert answers when they have 10 minutes. Asker doesn't feel guilty taking an hour of someone's day.

Together: easy to ask, easy to help.

Still early, still figuring it out. But this reframe changed everything.

Question for founders here: ever discovered you were solving the right problem but telling the wrong story?

Building this at mindpick.me - async Q&A, no scheduling. Would love feedback from anyone who's dealt with this problem on either side.