Problem Sensitivity: How to find Startup Ideas
Great startups begin with great problems. But how do you train yourself to spot them? This session explores the art of problem sensitivity—the ability to recognize unmet needs, inefficiencies, and emerging opportunities before others do. Learn how to shift your mindset, ask the right questions, and uncover startup-worthy insights in everyday life. Whether you're an aspiring founder or an experienced entrepreneur looking for your next big idea, this talk will provide actionable frameworks and real-world examples to sharpen your problem-finding skills.
Dr. Arman Nassirtoussi is an AI founder, and startup builder with a track record of launching ventures across multiple countries. With a PhD in AI and experience developing data-driven systems at companies like Zalando, Henkel, and T-Systems, he approaches every challenge with an entrepreneurial mindset. A strong advocate of lean startup and customer development, he focuses on fast iteration and building products that solve real problems. He is currently working on a new venture in Agentic AI.
There’s no perfect playbook for turning creativity into a business. It’s really just a mix of instinct, strategy, and a lot of trial and error. In this session, I’ll share my messy, unpredictable journey of taking the leap, from marketing your personal brand to juggling life while running a solo creative business. Whether you’re on the edge or already mid-air, let’s navigate the uncertainty together.
Scaling a digital business from a one-person operation to a high-performing team is a challenge many solopreneurs face. Without the right strategies, growth can lead to inefficiencies, miscommunication, and burnout.
In this session, I will guide solopreneurs through the essential steps to prepare for team expansion while maintaining agility and focus. Attendees will learn:
- When and how to start building a team – Identifying the right moment to scale and the first roles to hire
- Delegation strategies that work – How to offload tasks effectively while maintaining quality and vision
- Systems and workflows for seamless collaboration – The must-have tools and processes to keep operations smooth
- Avoiding common scaling pitfalls – How to prevent growing pains that can slow down success
My company Path Unbound, a boutique UI/UX design school, is a challenger brand in a saturated market with many big named schools. We experienced a long slump in revenue in the first couple of years in business because we couldn’t find our product positioning. We offered products similar to our big competitors and tried to beat them with lower price only to have the opposite effect. People start doubting if we are bad because we were so much cheaper.
Last year, we discovered the magic formula to growth for us as a small challenger brand without big budget for advertising. We started to repackage our big product offerings into smaller ones that are ultra flexible serving mini segments of user personas. We started to see results within weeks of launching our new offerings, attracting more customers than we’ve ever have. In this talk, I’ll how we structured our product offerings according to customer personas and how other small businesses that are challenger brands to big competitors can thrive doing the same.
Often the hardest part for aspiring entrepreneurs is to just get started. So in this session, we'll design a brand, set-up a no-code website, and market it in less than 1hr. All live. No coding, no budget, no design or marketing skills required. Just very powerful and free tools.
