What is Real Problem AI?

Real Problem AI is a curated directory of 100 real problems worth building an AI startup around. Each problem is scored honestly on severity, AI feasibility, market signal, and competition gap. We're for builders looking for what to build, not for ethics debates about AI.

What is the difference between Real Problem AI and AI ethics or AI risks indexes?

Real Problem AI catalogues problems AI can solve — productive, commercial opportunities for builders. AI ethics indexes catalogue problems with AI itself (bias, environmental cost, copyright, consciousness). Different intent, different audience: founders and indie hackers vs researchers and policy folks.

What should I build with AI in 2026?

Look for problems with high severity (it costs people hours, sleep, or revenue every week), high AI feasibility (LLMs, vision or voice are great at this today), strong market signal (Reddit threads + willingness to pay), and a clear competition gap (incumbents miss the same obvious thing). Real Problem AI scores 100 such problems for you on those four axes.

Where do Real Problem AI's startup ideas come from?

From three sources, scanned each cycle: 1) Reddit threads where people describe a real friction in their own words, 2) podcasts and talks of founders young builders trust (Nikhil Kamath, Aman Gupta, Ankur Warikoo, Raj Shamani, Andrej Karpathy, Greg Isenberg), and 3) a continuous 1,000+ source scan covering forums, app store reviews, regulator filings, and field interviews.

Is Real Problem AI free?

Yes. Browsing every problem, opening every score breakdown, raising your hand on a co-founder match, and the founder vault are all free. There is no paywall.

How is each problem scored?

Four axes, each 1-10, weighted: Problem Severity (30%), AI Feasibility (25%), Market Signal (25%), Competition Gap (20%). Weighted average is the Opportunity Score on each card. Only problems clearing 7.0+ make the live list.

Why does the vibe-coded app hit production with no tests and leak my Stripe key on day 2?

Non-technical founders ship Cursor / Lovable / Bolt apps to real users with no test coverage, exposed secrets, and no idea where the bombs are.

Category: Others · Trend: Agent · Opportunity score: 8.7 / 10

What is the “Why does the vibe-coded app hit production with no tests and leak my Stripe key on day 2?” problem in 2026?

Non-technical founders ship Cursor / Lovable / Bolt apps to real users with no test coverage, exposed secrets, and no idea where the bombs are.

Who has this problem?

Non-engineer founders shipping AI-built v1 apps via Lovable, Bolt.new, v0, Cursor or Replit Agent.

Evidence this problem is real

“Live for two days, $4k of API spend on someone else's vibe-coded app using my exposed key.”

Sourced from Twitter / X founder threads, 2026 Q2; recurring 'I leaked my OpenAI key' posts

Existing players in this space

GitHub secret scanning — Catches obvious tokens after push; not ergonomic for non-engineer founders.
Vercel / Netlify env validation — Validates names, not exposure or rotation.
No one — Ships an opinionated 'production-readiness' lint for AI-generated apps.

What existing players are missing

A one-click scan for vibe-coded repos: secret leaks, missing rate limits, missing auth on routes, no error handler. Reads like a non-technical-founder report card.

How Real Problem AI scores this opportunity

Aggregate score: 8.7 / 10. Four-axis rubric:

Problem severity: 9 / 10
AI feasibility today: 8 / 10
Market signal: 9 / 10
Competition gap: 8 / 10

How to build a solution: stack hints

GitHub App
Static analysis on common AI-builder templates
Plaintext explanation engine
Stripe-shaped grade card