People say they want solutions. Most won’t try them.

I’ve been stuck on something lately and I’m honestly not sure if it’s just me.

I kept hearing the same complaint from multiple founders. Same pain, same wording, over and over. So I did the “right” thing: I built a small tool around it. No assumptions — they literally described the problem themselves.

When it was ready, I shared it with a few of them.

And… nothing.

No “this misses the point.”
No “not what I meant.”
Not even “this sucks.”
Just silence.

What’s confusing is that the problem clearly still exists. I still see people complaining about it in threads and comments. So it’s not that the pain disappeared.

It feels like there’s a gap no one talks about:
between “I hate this problem” and “I’ll spend 10 minutes trying something new.”

Most validation advice focuses on identifying pain. But it rarely helps you figure out which pains people will actually act on, even when a solution is handed to them.

Have you found a way to tell the difference?
Or is this just trial and error until something finally sticks?