Ask HN: Should I Build This?
How does one decide whether its a good idea to expend time and energy doing this?
The product itself is pretty niche and its market would be any only service that is focused on user privacy, whistle blowing sites, vpn services or any other that wishes to respect user privacy (dating, lgbt, hookup sites).
My product would be used by these services during the registration phase for users.
In term of time needed to build out this product, I estimate 2 weeks and possibly little to no input afterwards from a feature standpoint.
I'm not sure if I should do it or if there's an actual market for it, how can I tell without giving too much away? There is no product like this that I can compare against (maybe because its not that important?)
How do I quantify if there's an actual market for this product?
18 comments
[ 2.7 ms ] story [ 55.3 ms ] threadIn terms of value added for the services using it - I think its quite beneficial but this is what I'm struggling to quantify or be objective about.
This is very low maintenance and I am planning on doing this so it's as small technical debt as possible
How would you provide a service like that without any programmers?
Even if you tell your idea 99% of people won't do anything with it. If they do yours could still be implemented better and beat them or you could still beat them to market, or there could be a big enough market everyone can fit.
E.g there are like 10 uptime monitoring apps on indiehackers doing >3k mrr. Very simple function, tons of profitable competitors.
My advice is just say what it is you want to build and get actual feedback on the whole concept, you might even uncover better features by getting insight. Don't be afraid of people stealing your ideas. Ideas are a dime a dozen, successful startups are 1 attempt out of 99.
> I estimate 2 weeks
It is going to take longer than 2 weeks. And it is going be harder than you think.
Building a product is only the beginning. You will have to write copy, find customers, implement billing and charge folks, offer support, do maintenance, build features, again find customers, talk to them, again build features, tweak copy, handle legal/accounting, combat fraud, ride emotional rollercoaster, etc... Not to scare you off or anything, but writing code is only one part of building a software business.
Don't start before you have (rough) answers to these questions:
* Who is it for? No, it can't be for anyone. It can't be for a $LARGE_GROUP_OF_PEOPLE either ("any only service that is focused on user privacy, whistle blowing sites, vpn services").
* What problem does it solve? Do you know anyone who would pay for that?
* How are you going to reach potential customers? This is more important than you think it is. Assuming that you have a product that solves a real problem for a particular demographics (and they are willing to pay for it), you will have to find distribution channels that consistently send traffic your way. It can be SEO (takes a long time), blogging + newsletter(s) (takes a long time), direct sales (?!), marketplaces, paid acquisition (takes skills & budget), affiliates (you have to have an existing userbase for this to work), etc.
> I'm not sure if I should do it or if there's an actual market for it, how can I tell without giving too much away? There is no product like this that I can compare against (maybe because its not that important?)
Competition is a good proxy that there is money to be made in the market. I believe that true validation is people paying for what you have built. You can gather rough signals, but these signals can only take you that far: https://www.derrickreimer.com/essays/2019/05/17/im-walking-a...
Build it, and they will do absolutely nothing. I learned it the hard way.
In terms of finding if it is a needed solution, you will need to find your target customer in depth. Your target customer profile should be so narrow that it makes you uncomfortable.