u/processed-cheese-

TL;DR: I have ADHD and autism and made something that helped my friend and my dad - both small business owners, both have ADHD. I don't know if I solved a small business problem or an ADHD problem. How do I validate a concept for neurotypical people and avoid projecting my own experience?

Basically I'm trying to figure out how to build something for people whose brains work differently from mine, and I don't know how to get past my own reference frame.

Quick context so this isn't too abstract: my dad ran a small construction firm and has ADHD. He was brilliant at the actual work and completely defeated by the business side - paperwork, admin, tax returns, all of it. From about age 12 I took over the admin side because he just couldn't do it. I'm ADHD and autistic myself, and the autism side has helped me in building tools and systems to make admin stuff manageable.

I'm now thinking about turning that into something for small business owners more generally - essentially starter packs with guides, tools and standardised documents templates.

I know that paperwork and admin are especially brutal for people with ADHD. I've watched my dad drown in it, I've drowned in it myself, I've watched ADHD friends do the same. What I genuinely can't tell is whether the need is the same for neurotypical small business owners: you can find document templates free online, as well as information about specific processes, etc. It's not all in one place, but is that an impediment for a neurotypical person who doesn't get overwhelmed, paralysed, distracted, etc?

My worry is that I'll build something that's brilliant for people like me and my dad, and then discover the wider market of neurotypical tradesmen and small business owners don't actually want it because the problem, for them, is just mildly annoying rather than existentially overwhelming. That they just happily muddle through, because a free (albeit less optimal) solution is "good enough". I've always struggled with understanding the concept of "good enough" - my brain says "it's either appropriate or it's not" but I know that the autism can make me see things as black and white.

So basically the question I'm wrestling with is how do you do this? How do you design for, build for, or validate demand from people whose relationship with a problem is fundamentally different from yours, when your own experience keeps pulling you back to your own reference frame? Has anyone here navigated this - whether in building products, doing design work, writing for neurotypical audiences, or anything else where you had to translate between how your brain works and how theirs does?

A few questions in particular:

1. How do you know when a problem you feel acutely is also felt (even if less intensely) by neurotypical people, versus when it's a specifically neurodivergent problem that you're projecting outward?

2. What methods have actually worked for you to understand what neurotypical people want when you can't just trust your own intuitions?

3. Have you ever built something for a wider audience, thinking it was a universal problem, and found out it wasn't? Or the opposite: built something for "people like me" and found it worked brilliantly for everyone?

Not looking for validation of the specific business idea, I'm more trying to work out how to think about this honestly.

Looking for advice from people who've been through this. Not asking for feedback on the concept itself - asking how to validate it.

Quick context: my dad ran a small construction firm and struggled with the business side, particularly paperwork and admin. From age 12 I started helping, taking on more over time. When I started my own career I had less time to help directly, so I built him tools instead - spreadsheets, document libraries, guides. He shared them with mates in the industry who found them useful. I've since built similar things in my day jobs, and put together a starter pack for a friend launching a business in a different sector.

My problem: I can't tell if I've got a warped frame of reference. My dad has ADHD. So does the friend. And I have ADHD and autism. The thing I'm thinking about building - a curated suite of documents, guidance and tools for small businesses, probably construction first - might be solving an actual small business problem, or just a small-business-owner-with-ADHD problem.

And an honest objection to my own idea: most of what I'd include is available free online. My pitch is basically "everything in one place, unified style, curated from 10+ years of doing this across different sectors" (20+ if we count my child labour haha). But free is free. I genuinely don't know if a sole trader would see paperwork as enough of an impediment to pay for a solution, or if they'd just muddle through with their own templates.

Before I sink real rime into this, I want to figure out if the problem is real for the wider market. I'm wary of the standard traps:

1. "Would you buy this" surveys are famously unreliable
2. My personal network either has ADHD, will be too kind, or doesn't know enough about running a small business
3. I'll be biased toward finding confirming evidence

What actually works for validation when you're too close to the problem to see it clearly? What gave you reliable signal? What did you do that turned out to be a waste of time? How did you know when to commit versus when to pull back?

Not asking anyone to evaluate the idea itself - I know that's not what this sub is for. I'm asking about process. Any honest advice welcome.