Talk to people, preferably people with money, and ask them what their problems are. Some portion of those problems will be amenable to solution with a computer, phone, etc etc. Sketch out a low fidelity prototype of what the solution looks like, bring it back, and ask them to pay for it. If they'll pay for it, they want it.
Pro tip(and something that patio11 excels at): Talk to people who aren't engineers or otherwise in the software industry. They make notoriously difficult customers.
I wonder if there is any value in compiling a list of forums etc where non-techy business people hang out. EG hairdressers, mechanics, miscellaneous widget manufacturers etc.
We could then benignly eavesdrop and see if there are common issues in a particular industry that could be solved with software.
My suggestion is to look at everything through the lens of "how can I make this better?"...from that angle, suddenly the world starts looking like one, massive, un-tapped opportunity. When you hit on something you're passionate about do a deep-dive on the market and you'll find people who will want it (it's just about refining in what form and at what price). The reason you'll need to be passionate is that sometimes people don't know what they want until they see it - it takes passion to drive demand :)
Well, now that I think about it, maybe, but I have no idea how to approach it and I think a year of sown-level of insight is probably worth about a week's worth of insight from someone who's way smarter than me.
I don't know how to deal with that scenario, though.
I don't know what is your skillset so I can't really say where to look or what to do.
Generally: Pick a problem. The world is plagued with large problems from power to food, from access to information to clean water. Each problem is begging for a solution.
Groucho Marx sent the following wire to a Hollywood club he had joined: "Please accept my resignation. I don't want to belong to any club that will accept me as a member.”
If you can't think of anything you can make that people would want, then you need to either:
I have a million idea. I have no idea if they're worth anything.
Here's one idea:
Something that does most of what Calibre does, but without being the awful experience that is calibre. Some GUI that can convert ebooks between different formats is one part. A gui to standardise file names would be something else. A catalogue so you know what you have would be a third part. But not all in one ugly weird god-awful gui mess like calibre.
There's no short and simple answer... but you can read this article by James Altucher and follow his ideas on how to build your idea muscle and hopefully in 6 months time you'll be brimming with ideas :)
I read somewhere to go to question and answer sites and forums and look for problems people are complaining about. Second, elance, guru people are paying for solutions to problems. google and bing have monthly search volumes which tell what people are looking for. It's an expensive way to advertise but for market research it's not bad. Find a sales/marketing guys they're always looking for things for developers to build for them to sell.
Talk to your friends working at small non-technology businesses. You will be amazed at some of the workflow problems they experience and that you could write software to fix. For example, using emailed spreadsheets to track specific data, or manual tracking of time off, outdated scheduling systems, etc.
There are a lot of niches out there to help smaller businesses in various industries do their work easier. Ask around and see how they do things. I get a lot of interesting ideas I only wish I had time to follow up on this way.
I have a Google Doc full of ideas. I write down what frustrates me, what I hate doing, or what I'd go as far as to pay someone else to fix for me. I don't just come up with ideas, I've been maintaining this list of ideas for a little over a year now.
What ticks you off? Does Facebook not work for you for some particular reason or maybe something on craigslist is missing... Maybe in your community you want to do or find out something but there is no resource for it.
When you work on your computer is there something you consider a stumbling block, or do you have a trick that does well but its hard to explain or the process isn't quite acceptable for non techies.
Do you find it hard to locate things you have interest in? Why is it so hard? Do you see folks struggle on some process or device and are sure there could be a better way to do it?
Do you think it would be really cool if there was ??? Do you think you can do something way better than what has already been done?
Do you dream something that is totally out of your reach but would be interesting to just try to do it?
These are some of the seeds of projects.
As far as what people would want, you are people. Unless you know some specific market or the need trying to second guess others needs could be hard or disastrous. Start with yourself for ideas.
Absolutely I've ran into this. Here's one of my ideas on why that is and maybe what we can do about it -
I think everyone has made it pretty clear that it's all about finding a pain point / frustration.
Most of us have our day to day routine and we've worked out short-cuts and/or answers to obstacles that stand in the way of the things we do most often.
It's either this or we've just put up with whatever issue is at hand. However, I reckon most of us here don't settle for this option. Hackers are usually the ones to come up with a workaround or a quick-fix anyway. This may also be why they make bad customers.
The result is we don't feel like we encounter huge problems very often. So yea, in summary I think that's why speaking to people is very important. But another route is to just do something you don't normally do.
Perhaps there's something you're putting off doing because it just seems so bothersome?
Or maybe there's a project that you'd like to do but you've put off because you're not sure where to start?
A good way to find problems is to put yourself in difficult situations.
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[ 3.8 ms ] story [ 53.6 ms ] threadWe could then benignly eavesdrop and see if there are common issues in a particular industry that could be solved with software.
I don't know how to deal with that scenario, though.
Generally: Pick a problem. The world is plagued with large problems from power to food, from access to information to clean water. Each problem is begging for a solution.
Groucho Marx sent the following wire to a Hollywood club he had joined: "Please accept my resignation. I don't want to belong to any club that will accept me as a member.”
If you can't think of anything you can make that people would want, then you need to either:
1. Learn to make different things
2. Learn more about what people want
Here's one idea:
Something that does most of what Calibre does, but without being the awful experience that is calibre. Some GUI that can convert ebooks between different formats is one part. A gui to standardise file names would be something else. A catalogue so you know what you have would be a third part. But not all in one ugly weird god-awful gui mess like calibre.
http://www.jamesaltucher.com/2012/04/how-to-have-great-ideas...
There are a lot of niches out there to help smaller businesses in various industries do their work easier. Ask around and see how they do things. I get a lot of interesting ideas I only wish I had time to follow up on this way.
When you work on your computer is there something you consider a stumbling block, or do you have a trick that does well but its hard to explain or the process isn't quite acceptable for non techies.
Do you find it hard to locate things you have interest in? Why is it so hard? Do you see folks struggle on some process or device and are sure there could be a better way to do it?
Do you think it would be really cool if there was ??? Do you think you can do something way better than what has already been done?
Do you dream something that is totally out of your reach but would be interesting to just try to do it?
These are some of the seeds of projects.
As far as what people would want, you are people. Unless you know some specific market or the need trying to second guess others needs could be hard or disastrous. Start with yourself for ideas.
I think everyone has made it pretty clear that it's all about finding a pain point / frustration.
Most of us have our day to day routine and we've worked out short-cuts and/or answers to obstacles that stand in the way of the things we do most often.
It's either this or we've just put up with whatever issue is at hand. However, I reckon most of us here don't settle for this option. Hackers are usually the ones to come up with a workaround or a quick-fix anyway. This may also be why they make bad customers.
The result is we don't feel like we encounter huge problems very often. So yea, in summary I think that's why speaking to people is very important. But another route is to just do something you don't normally do.
Perhaps there's something you're putting off doing because it just seems so bothersome?
Or maybe there's a project that you'd like to do but you've put off because you're not sure where to start?
A good way to find problems is to put yourself in difficult situations.