01 Idea
Is this worth building?
Prove the problem is real before you build anything. This stage ends when you can name who has the problem, how often they hit it, and what they do about it today.
Assemble evidence that a real problem exists, and that your solution addresses it, before committing resources to building. The work is research, customer discovery, competitive analysis, and honest evaluation of disconfirming evidence.
Where you point it matters as much as how well you run it. YC's Summer 2026 request for startups argues that total spend on services is many times larger than spend on software, and because most services are already outsourced, replacing them with an AI native product is structurally easier than replacing software (via The VC Corner summary, April 2026).
Example
People struggle with expense reporting.
Finance managers at mid market companies spend four plus hours a week reconciling submissions because their tools do not integrate with their accounting software.
0 of 3 met3 remaining