This weekend, I was working on the “book library” MVP. I checked X, formerly Twitter, to see if others were experiencing the same pains around reading that I’ve experienced. I came across a thread from a notable CEO complaining about the same pain I’m trying to solve.

Because he’s well known, the thread got tons of exposure, which resulted in lots of replies. The replies were a gold mine. I learned about other founders who’ve built solutions to solve this problem. I started a list of competitors and added each of them to it. I also read every reply because people articulated their perspective on the problem and suggested solutions. I noted the suggestions and added some to a list of potential features.

My takeaway was that X is a pretty good tool for researching a problem, given the crowdsourced nature of the platform. Despite lots of noise and downsides, it quickly helped me find competitors I might not have known about otherwise and get candid thoughts on the problem from users I wouldn’t have had access to.