Before You Commit: People, Problem, Pay

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An idea can be exciting enough to occupy your thoughts for weeks. You can imagine the product, the people using it and the feeling of finally putting it into the world. By the time you ask whether it deserves your time, you may already feel committed to it.

When I am deciding what to work on, I find it useful to slow that moment down. I use three questions, in this order: People, Problem, Pay.

Who am I doing this for? What problem am I helping them solve? How will the work repay the effort it asks of me?

I use this filter for product ideas, and the same questions can help when considering a new team or a job offer. The point is to make the decision clearer while it is still small enough to change.

People: who is this actually for?

Start with someone you can describe clearly enough to have a useful conversation with them.

“Small businesses” leaves a lot unanswered. A tutor who spends Sunday evening rearranging lesson bookings gives you a clearer place to begin. You can ask what their week looks like, where the work gets difficult and how they handle it today.

That tutor is an example. For your own idea, try to name a person or group you can actually reach. Their situation may be different from the one you have imagined.

I would want to know:

• What do I understand about their day-to-day situation?
• Have I heard them describe the difficulty in their own words?
• Is the person using the product also the person who would pay for it?
• Do I want to spend time understanding and supporting these people?

If you cannot answer yet, a conversation may be your next useful step. You can learn something important before committing to a design, a feature list or months of work.

Problem: what happens if it stays unresolved?

Once you understand the people, look more closely at the problem.

What does it cost them? The cost could be money, time, repeated effort, missed opportunities or stress. How often does it happen? What are they already doing about it?

A question I find useful is: “Can you tell me about the last time this happened?”

It gives you something concrete to explore. You can ask what they tried, where they got stuck and what happened next. You may discover that the part you planned to automate is manageable, while another part creates most of the difficulty.

Existing workarounds are useful clues. A spreadsheet, a repeated phone call or a long message thread can show you where effort is going. You still need to understand whether people want a different solution and what improvement would matter to them.

Suppose the tutor already uses a calendar successfully. The real difficulty might be late cancellations and the conversations that follow them. That changes the problem you would investigate before building a scheduling tool.

Write down the evidence you have and the assumption you still need to test. Keeping those separate makes it easier to change your mind when you learn something new.

Pay: what makes the effort worthwhile?

Pay includes the financial return. If you want this to become a business, you need a credible answer to who pays, what they pay for and how that payment happens.

An encouraging conversation, a waitlist signup, a commitment and an actual payment tell you different things. Be clear about which one you have.

I also include fulfillment in this question. Useful work can pay you through learning, service, satisfaction or the relationships you build along the way. Those returns matter, and I want to be honest about them too.

You might decide that a small project is worth a few evenings because it helps people you care about or develops a skill you want to practice. You might also decide that a business needs to earn enough to support the time you are putting into it. Each decision comes with its own expectations.

The difficulty is leaving those expectations vague. If the financial side is still unresolved, give the experiment a time budget and a review date. Write down what you hope to learn before investing more.

For the tutor example, the next step could be a few conversations and a small manual test. You can decide what would justify further work after seeing how people respond.

Use the same questions when considering a job

A job offer is also a decision about people, problems and what the work gives back to you.

People

Ask: “Who would I work with most closely, and how does the team work together?”

After the interview, reflect on your own experience. Did you feel listened to? Were your questions taken seriously? Can you see yourself working with these people every day?

An interview gives you a limited view. If something important is still unclear, you can ask for another conversation with someone you would work alongside.

Problem

Ask: “What would make this hire successful after the first three months?”

Try to understand why the role exists, what you would be responsible for and what support you would have. Consider whether you want to spend your working days solving those problems.

Pay

Ask: “What does a normal week look like, including the difficult parts?”

Look at compensation alongside learning, responsibility and fulfillment. Include the effect on your health, family, time and other commitments. Confirm important expectations directly rather than filling the gaps with what you hope the role will be.

Make one decision clearer today

Choose one opportunity you are considering. Spend about a minute on each P, then use the remaining two minutes to identify your weakest answer and choose a next step.

You may decide to proceed with a small commitment, gather more evidence or park the idea. Any of those can be a thoughtful decision when you understand your reasons.

Get the free, fillable Three-P checklist

The framework cannot guarantee a successful business or a good job fit. It gives you a way to examine your assumptions and decide how much of your time you are willing to commit.

Start with the question you have the least evidence for. That is usually where the next conversation belongs.