Ask HN: It’s 2018, what to build now?
Enough is enough. It’s now 2018 and I’ve spent months trying to come up with good side business/product ideas and have hit an analysis paralysis point with no good ideas. I’d like to focus on small business problems but just can’t seem to find any. I’ve emailed businesses, scoured the web and am having little luck. My last product was a hypothesis that never gained traction so I’m now extra cautious (maybe too much) about jumping into any new unvalidated ideas.
Any entrepreneurial advice on how to get out of this funk? And also any advice/approaches on how to identify a good idea?
59 comments
[ 2.6 ms ] story [ 116 ms ] threadInstead I would suggest:
1) introduce your self and inform them you are interested in their area of business.
2) ask if they'd have the time to chat to you about it on a call or perhaps over a coffee.
3) book the meetings (some will say no, that's fine).
4) at the meeting ask them about their business. Be genuinely interested. Don't sell them anything. These aren't sales calls or meetings. Listen to what they say. Ask how they do those things. What's the best part about they way they do it, what's the worst, what tools and processes do they use and where did they hear about them from.
5) write it all down and after 3-7 meetings looks for patterns that indicate problems or processes that you could solve.
6) given those problems return to your new friends and ask them what the world would look like for them if those problems you identified were solved (no pitching solutions). How much better off (if at all) would they be. How much more time could they save, how much more product could they sell, how many bew customers could they find or old customers could they keep.
7) record everything and look for patterns again.
8) come up with some ideas to solve the more valuable problems. Use the Mum Test technique (don't reveal your ego) to identify if they would pay for your solution (ask for money on the spot, you've enough report now to push the boat out a little).
9) once enough people bite, have a crack at it!
Actually selling them solutions is difficult though because management is often too stupid to understand it no matter how simple the solution. Plus often management doesn't actually care if they are throwing money away. So long as they think they are up to date with industry norms in the region they operate then they feel like they are doing their job. I've proposed solutions that similar companies use in other countries successfully and been met with complete disinterest. YMMV
- Code/Product Documentation SaaS tool for early stage tech companies (very few good products, one is ReadMe.io)
- An ad network for progressive web apps (PWA have good future and as of now there is no exclusive ad network for them)
- CRM kind of SaaS app for startup founders (where founders can manage all their relationship, communication and contacts like investors, journalists, team, power users, etc.)
You wanted B2B so I shared those. I have a few B2C ideas as well in case you'd like to explore them as well. Hope it was helpful.
I'd personally like to see a simpler version that offers a free plan too which students can use. Just like how many B2B and developer targeted SaaS apps offer a free plan that has some limitations but help people to get started.
Students globally are not documenting their code, projects and startups because there is no simple and more importantly free/cheap alternative that they are aware of.
Readme.io is pricey and is simply beyond the reach of students and developers of developing/underdeveloped countries.
Their is no Readme.io like SaaS app for small and budget-sensitive projects as far as I know.
Lots of problems don't have solutions that would be viable for a new startup (especially not for lean bootstrapped ones).
The problems tend to be either so very specific where the solution would be "just use Excel" or "you need a custom made software", or somewhere in between there.
Or so common and obvious and popular where the solution is already hyper saturated with million dollar and billion dollar companies.
For example very few businesses have customer service support software needs that are not already satisfied by the huge array of existing solutions.
Even if they do, that knowledge is not suddenly going to give you any advantages. You end up at the position of building a feature of a much bigger software ("We like Zendesk but it's missing ____ feature").
“What do you do first when you get to work?”, “Do you dress a certain way?”, “Do you eat with co-workers or alone?”, “Do you like to go outside during the day?”, “What are your thoughts on <habit x/y/z>?”.
It surprises me time and time again how deep a seemingly simple line of work turns out to be, and how many simple things are in a complex job. If you ask many questions, something that you have good thoughts about on is bound to pop up.
Going into the field anthropology-style means participatory observation; you join those that you are researching in whatever they are doing. You try to experience their world and uncover their interpretation of it. You make an honest attempt to blend in and almost become of them.
And then you don't become one of them, because your being-different enables you to identify opportunities that others in that field cannot. And that is the stuff great ideas are made of.
I'd advise against this. Good product ideas usually come from a deep, subtle understanding of the problem domain, not by searching for new problems in markets you don't know anything about.
Try using https://ourincrediblejourney.tumblr.com/
Or searching HN.
https://medium.com/black-n-white/the-problem-with-problems-4...
What inefficiencies have you noticed?
What problems have you noticed from the consumer end of your relationships with businesses?
Could you make something obsolete with automation, or make something else more efficient and profitable?
You don't need to be the first one to come up with an idea for a startup. Most startups fail, even if they came up with a very new and unique idea.
You just need to be the one who does executes it better.
For people starting out, I would suggest looking at "inevitable" trends. Things that seem like they will certainly be popular or prevalent in 2 to 5 years.
Examples:
- Cannabis legalization: It's virtually inevitable that cannabis will be legal in all 50 states, there's lots of room for ancillary businesses.
- Crypto currency: This is becoming more and more mainstream. If you can come up with some way for the average person to benefit from and want to use crypto, there's great opportunity available for you.
- VR: The tech for vr is improving every year, and mainstream adoption is increasing. There's still no "killer app" for VR (a "killer app" is software that convinces people to want to buy the hardware en masse).
- IoT: Adoption is increasing for smart lights and other devices, but they're still a luxury for most people. Can you come up with some connected everyday device that people can't live without?
Look at what's working well in similar industries that could work well in emerging industries.
One of the first "successes" I had was to create very simple apps for Android in 2008/2009 which simply showed quotes from popular celebrities. The technology was not impressive at all, but it was obvious to me that many people would get smartphones in the next few years. I learned that you could take something people love in one medium, and reproduce it for a new and emerging medium to gain "free" marketing as the medium grows.
I second this for 2018 but the quicker you ship your project the better: becoming mainstream means the sector going to cap saturation / projects flooding / big boys regulation pretty soon.
This might be both good and bad as the steam runs out of the current climb.
That said, I have been wanting to build something which might solve the volatility issue in cryptocurrency but see multiple problems. For one, I have zero programming knowledge and I have been trying to learn but it is going no where very fast. Second, the cryptocurrency crowd is difficult to please. This service, at least for starters, might cost a lot of money which might not go down well.
First person or organisation to fix this problem will rake in the cash.
Best place to start is where you already are, not a new venture - what exactly was the product and what did you do to gain traction?
EDIT: You posted a "Show HN" linking to the site below [1], is this the project you're referencing?
[1] https://www.helloreads.com/
Pick a market - no point in building things for people who don't have the ability or will to pay for them
Join their community - make like you're interested in getting licensed or participating. Look around for forums, almost every specialty field of hobby or business has online forums and they're generally easy to get into.
Pay attention to what people complain about and which problems come up repeatedly. You can ask people who are complaining to explain what their issues are and they'll often be happy to tell you. An even better way to gather information is dispute the basis for the complaint, insisting that The Problem isn't a big deal - as a newbie on the forum this will usually inspire someone to put you in your place with a detailed rebuttal that they might not otherwise have bothered to spell out for you.
2.- There are no blatant problems awaiting for a solution anymore (it's 2018!). Successful startups have to provide an original, excellently-executed approach to old problems.
3.- You have huge competition; be aware of that. A whole generation has been taught to pursue the same goals as you.
4.- Finally, one always can network. Lots of non-tecnnical founders are looking for CTOs.
This is unlikely to be true. It's at least as untrue as it was in any previous year. Good ideas are only blatantly obvious in hindsight.
Basically it was a matter of being in the right place, right time, right knowledge (and execution, of course)
Winners took it all.
There are plenty of problems, the shortage is in problems with obvious solutions that have not yet been implemented yet. One could argue that these opportunities are becoming more fleeting, as more people are being drawn into the search for them.
Also: http://www.paulgraham.com/ambitious.html
My room window was just above neon sign for video/movies rental shop (VHS stuff - where I'm from it was called "Video Klub"). And naturally I used paper, scissors & glue to make my own sign to hang from my window as of course I wanted to "tap into" people looking at VHS-shop neon sign...
And let me tell you - business was doing awesome ... Until one day an older neighbor (like a grandpa) asked my parents what's up with sign hanging from one of our windows saying "Strip Klub"?!? (context: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comic_strip)
And in the ~25 years since then - I've had plenty of those "not the brightest idea". However over time, most of them these days are good, though almost all are either a bit too late or too early, so I didn't quite yet come up with million bucks idea...
I still keep trying - and it's the combination of knowing two things:
1) The only reason everyone can walk (that is able to physically) is because they kept trying until they did it!
2) On your death bed - only things you'll regret, are the things you wish you tried but didn't ...
Keep trying!
It's no coincidence that there have been many successful products that have started as internal tools written to solve internal problems.