Hunting for ideas.

Read time ~ 3 mins

I frequently spend time hunting for ideas for side projects that i can learn from and would eventually be my main gig. I add all the ideas i have to a trello board. After failing a couple of times i have realised all ideas aren’t worth pursuing. This has led me to uncover a couple of ways in which you can come up with ideas worth investing (both time and money).

Identify problems.

Not every but most successful companies started with a problem. If you look at FeedbackPanda or NomadList , they started because their founders faced a problem which needed to be solved. In the process of finding a solution they created a product and then realised that the problem is faced by sizeable amount of people willing to pay for the solution. So one way to start a potentially successful buisness is to identify problems you face in your life. Assess if there can be a solution devised for it and then check if it is technically possible. Once you get yes(es) to these questions, you start to look for people who have the same problem and if there are enough people willing to pay for it. Voila, you have a product that people might use and even pay for it.

“Search for a problem” though sounds really simple, it isn’t. You need to develop a vision to identify problems as you are accustomed to either accepting it as a unsolvable problem or you have found a less effective workaround. Creating such a vision will take time and conscious effort. Even if you end up finding a problem remember it needs to be solvable by the current technology and you need sizebale amount of people who are willing to pay for it. Use these things to filter out ideas.

I can build it better.

If you don’t want to spend time validating your idea or search for potential problems, you can create a product which is already out there. But in this case you need knowledge and experience of the exisiting product. You should know where the exisitng products falls short.

The thing that i like about this approach is that you already know that there is a market for your product, you know there are people willing to pay for it and you know where your target audience is. This saves massive amounts of effort.

The downside is you have a competition and if it has become an industry standard its going to be super difficult to get users for your product. Also people accostumed to use the other product might find it difficult to use your product. But the bright side is you already know what UI and UX you need to have for your prodcut.

These are my thoughts on the topic. Thank you for reading and let me know in the comments what you guys think!