Ask HN: How much would you pay to solve the largest problem you face? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: How much would you pay to solve the largest problem you face?

8 pointsYAndreaRusso39 comments

I'm working on something new and I need to test it with real problems - the kind that keep you stuck for weeks or months. (basically stumbled on this framework, solving my own problems and want to see who else it could be useful for / what people would pay). Really just looking for a conversation. Here's what I'm looking for: complex situations where you've tried multiple approaches but nothing quite clicks. Business strategy paralysis, relationship dynamics you can't figure out, career transitions that feel impossible, creative blocks, or any problem where you know there's a solution but can't see it. Not selling anything - just testing whether this approach actually works for problems other than my own.

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Some of the largest real problems are: climate change, energy instability, micro-plastics pollution, poverty, malnutrition, lack of clean potable water, tornadoes destroying communities, floods destroying towns and agriculture, etc, etc.

Still waiting to see effective solutions being implemented.

40, single, can't get past the first date. "Don't feel the spark/connection" etc. Things aren't about to get easier. Below-avg attractiveness but not horrible, tall, in-shape. Nerdy hobbies. (Think engineering etc, vice DnD). Would pay $$$ to solve this.

> complex situations where you've tried multiple approaches but nothing quite clicks

What are the multiple approaches you've tried?

You can pay $$$ to solve it. They say it's the world's oldest profession (or p2p business if you prefer).

You don't feel the spark, or they don't?

Sample size issue?

They. Probably a "someone better is one swipe away" (?) issue.

How do you know?

Things will get easier women after 40 are less selective.

He prolly wants someone younger, hence the difficulty. :)

Maybe ask them after without coming across as desperate? Something like:

"Thanks for being honest and I wish you the best with your search.

If you have a moment, would you be able to give me a few suggestions on how I could improve? Is it something obvious I can work on but just not aware of? Like my breath stinks? Or clothes don't fit properly? Or I come off as rude or closed off? Of course, no pressure to answer. Just trying to figure out how I can improve myself. Thank you."

This is fantastic!

Be ready to hear things you may not like but hopefully it gives you something to work and improve on. Regardless of whether they say something offensive or rude, thank them for taking the time to respond and don't try to argue with them. Wishing you the best.

I do give feedback when they ask for it, but it ends up with a foot on the door. "But I'm not like that! But I can change! But your breath stinks too!!"

Yes that's where you gotta embrace whatever feedback they give even if you think it doesn't apply to you. Thank them for taking the time to respond and move on without arguing back.

I would lead with making it very clear that you don't ask this to make it work with this person, but to make it work with the next.

I do chatbots focused on interesting conversations. Not specifically to solve this; it's just that I find most conversations dull and I'm the kind of person who would marathon Sorkin/Tarantino just to listen to people talk.

Would you be interested in an open ended first date sim? It could be voice so you get used to voice; one issue I have is I can type well but the brain circuits don't trigger the same way when talking.

Possibly start with an interested date at lower difficulty - someone who asks you the questions and coaches you into interesting answers. Then ramps up to shy/unfriendly where you have to work to get them engaged.

This is definitely cyberpunk dystopian response.

Lonely? Why not talk to machines?

Grim.

Talking is a skill. Skills are improved with usage and practice. Not everyone wants to practice on another human. Honestly, it's a bit of a jerk move to date people to practice dating someone better.

When people say they're unattractive, often it's not because they're ugly. Ugly is a disadvantage, but not the biggest one.

For both men and women, it's usually because they lack confidence. Or they're boring. Or sleazy. If you're getting into a first date and not a second, you're likely attractive enough on the 'resume', just messing up on the actual date. You might be saying something wrong. You might be delivering a good joke the wrong way. Sometimes it's just saying things in the wrong order.

The longer they go without some form of success, the less confident they become.

I thought the diagnosis was fairly clear; sorry for jumping straight to pitching a cure. This is a good example of saying things in the wrong order.

> I thought the diagnosis was fairly clear; sorry for jumping straight to pitching a cure. This is a good example of saying things in the wrong order.

That you think LLMs are the cure to loneliness misses what a "cure" even looks like here. OP clearly writes well enough to get first dates - the issue isn't conversational content but likely body language, energy, presence, the thousand micro-signals that happen below conscious awareness. You can't chatbot your way into better posture or more relaxed eye contact.

This is classic LLM wrapper syndrome. Someone has a hammer (conversational AI) so every problem looks like a nail (conversation optimization). But the actual failure mode here probably happens in the first thirty seconds of meeting, before anyone's even said anything substantive.

Op would probably benefit more from something social like improv classes (physical presence, spontaneity), dance lessons (body awareness, comfort with proximity), or honestly just hanging out in social spaces doing things they actually enjoy rather than performing "date behaviors." The energy of someone genuinely engaged in something they love is magnetic in ways that no amount of conversation optimization can replicate.

I just don't believe that "practice talking to a computer" will ever be a sufficient platform to teach people how to be genuinely charming, let alone charmingly genuine.

I was thinking like this, but after being married before I'm not even sure I want to date. I have friends, hobbies, kids in school to manage. Not really feeling the dating scene right now. I do enjoy talking to and meeting new people but often do this as part of hobbies or groups I've joined rather than in the context of "dating".

Are you looking because you're lonely, bored or just because that's what you think is expected?

Have you tried visiting different countries and try to date there? Depending on the country it can make a huge difference

I had pay $500+ for a solution to my biggest bottleneck: aligning technical debt reduction with stakeholder urgency. We’ve tried sprints, documentation blitzes, and dedicated refactor cycles—but the core tension remains: ‘Fix now vs. build new.’

Your framework’s intriguing. If it can map this to clear business outcomes (e.g., ‘X% faster delivery in 3 months’), I’d test it. What’s your angle—systems thinking, behavioral psychology, or something else?

P.S. For context: I lead eng at a Series B SaaS co. My ‘stuck’ example: Tech debt costs us ~20% velocity, but ROI arguments fail with revenue-focused execs.

This happens in many orgs. The truth of this situation is that it's engineering team's responsibility to build maintainable system, managers only care about results, risk management and team velocity.

The problem you're trying to solve is not that features get more prioritisation, but your estimations doesn't reflect the reality and your code-review process is broken as engineers are not spotting growing technical debt and refactoring opportunities and think that someone should give them a permission or create a ticket to work on that.

This is engineering culture 101 (look up the boyscout rule in software engineering).

Are they strictly focused on revenue and growth metrics? There might be a lot of relationship building needed beyond just the necessary ROI arguments.

i monologue in the morning and talk through whatever's top of mind. i process the transcript with an ai im building and its great at enabling me to solve my own problems.

How much I would pay depends on what it is and if it actually solves the problem. A lot of people make bold claims that often fall flat. Maybe they work for others, but they didn’t have any lasting impact on me.

fair, what are the scopes of your problems generally?

What I suffer from can't be fixed. I have schizoaffective disorder a mental illness that makes it hard to work much less remember things. Before I developed it I was a 10x programmer and a super debugger.

i would love to chat more about this. my backgrounds in bme and personally interested in health.

My email is orionblastar@gmail.com

Here is a definition of my mental illness: https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/schizoaffecti...

Here is some more: https://www.bridgestorecovery.com/schizoaffective-disorder/l...

Employers do not like me having it because it makes it harder to do work and some days are worse than others. Management just doesn't understand my mental illness so I am on disability because I cannot hold down a job.

Your condition sounds really challenging. I'm sorry you have to suffer from it and I truly wish you well.

Thank you not everyone is understanding. Less than half a percent of the population in the USA suffers from it so it isn't a priority for doctors to treat and cure. I am on psychiatric medication for it but it makes me drowsy.

not only in a business context, this could be a health issue. i helped someone develop a plan to treat their knee pain

I would pay millions to solve my I want a billion problem.

You could join something like Founder Institute or Harvard Business School?

My email is kbe@gmx.us, my company would EASILY be willing to pay anyone upwards of $100M/yr salary to help solve our number one problem of how to make $100 million/yr in profit!

Claude and gpt can do it for $20/mo

find something that cuts people s time for setting something up down from 1 month to 5 mins and that company ll defintiely do 100M ARR

between $300 billion and $50 trillion over the next two decades.

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