Pick a Problem Worth a Small Product

What you will learn

• Why a small, specific product beats a big vague one for a first attempt
• Three filters that tell you whether a problem is worth writing about
• How to define a scope you can finish in a week

The first product should be small, and that is a strategy rather than a compromise. A 30-page guide that solves one problem completely teaches you the whole production pipeline - choosing, writing, checking, designing, describing, publishing - in a week. A 200-page book teaches you the same lessons over six months, with far more ways to stop halfway.

So choose a problem, not a topic. A topic is email marketing. A problem is my welcome email gets opened and then nothing happens. Topics produce encyclopedias; problems produce products, because a problem has a before and an after that a reader can recognise.

Run candidates through three filters. Can you name the person? Not a demographic - a situation you have seen, in a forum thread, a support inbox, your own past. If you cannot point to a real conversation about it, you are guessing. Is the answer short? If the honest answer is a book, the honest product is a different, narrower problem. Do people already pay for something here? Search the niche: if there are paid products, courses or services, the demand exists; if there is nothing at all, you are probably the only one interested.

Then set the scope in numbers, because vague scope is what kills first products. Write it down: a maximum page count, a deadline in days, and the one thing the reader must be able to do when they finish. My rule of thumb for a first product is 25 to 40 pages of useful content, one template, and one week of evenings. If your idea does not fit, cut the idea, not the deadline.

Finally, write the promise in one sentence, from the reader's side of the table. After this guide you will have a welcome email sequence written and scheduled, even if you have never written one. That sentence is the filter for every later decision: anything that does not serve it gets cut, and the cut is easy because you decided the promise before you were attached to any paragraph.

Action step

List five problems you have personally seen people struggle with. Score each on the three filters, keep the best one, and write its scope: page limit, deadline, and the one thing the reader can do afterwards. Then write the promise sentence in the reader's voice and keep it at the top of your working file.