HN Explorer

Ask HN: is finding an idea a major bottleneck for you?

8 points by skarmklart ↗ HN
Just thought this would be a neat topic for HN since my recent research shows that there are surprisingly many programmers out there (two thirds of responders in my survey) who want to start a side project for profit, but their main problem is just finding the initial idea.

Full disclosure: I am working on a book on how to find and test Software-as-a-Service ideas.

36 comments

[ 2.5 ms ] story [ 77.1 ms ] thread
Jeremy1026
Yes. That is my biggest hurdle in software development. I can't ever seem to come up with an idea that I feel will be worth the time and resources to bring to life.
Ultron
No, but finding the right idea is.
hashtree
My situation as well. There are some beautiful, and often little known, business models/ideas out there. Sometimes in industries which few have interest in. I focus on long term, sustainable, profitable business models. But they must scale. It works out well.

No lottery odds type instagram ideas which couldn't be a thriving business without being bought out. I also favor long term revenue models over ones that peak and have a very quick decline for all but the top 1% (e.g. app stores). That isn't to say I don't have app store apps, but they compliment the primary offering to expand the audience rather than being a revenue driver.

You see many going for the billion dollar ideas, which is cool. I'll stick with the "easily" attainable and interesting models/ideas that make six to seven figures a year. With the scalability that I require, I can do two or three (via having world-class talent on retainer from time-to-time). There you go, set for life. Do what you want and truly help people.

OP: Good luck on the book!

skarmklart
My situation as well. There are some beautiful, and often little known, business models/ideas out there. Sometimes in industries which few have interest in. I focus on long term, sustainable, profitable business models. But they must scale. It works out well.

Mind telling us more? Sounds interesting :)

OP: Good luck on the book!

Thanks!

DanBC
No, I have very many ideas. I have neither the time nor skill to do anything with them. I write them down and I'll put them on a bit of WWW space sometime.

EDIT: Some of the more sensible are around behaviour modification. They're all a bit UK-centric, but modifiable.

EG

1) drink diaries. People aren't aware of how much they actually drink, so an easy way of keeping track and then converting that into the UK standard "units" would be good.

2) Budgeting for poor people claiming benefits. Benefits might be changing to monthly payments (from fortnightly). People say this is going to be very hard to adjust to. A simple app to help people keep track of money in and out is handy. What makes this "fun" is the need to make it work on not-smart phones and non-data plans.

rubiquity
Yes! I definitely have that entrepreneurial burn inside of me but I haven't had any idea that I feel strongly about yet. I think I'm going to start trying to opening up my mind more and engaging in new things, reading about topics that maybe I wouldn't have before, etc.
joonix
I have a few solid ideas that I believe I could execute well, in a wide variety of industries. Mind you this is after purging many ideas that fail vetting. However, my limitation is lack of capital. I'm not well connected and wouldn't know where to begin to look for funds.
skarmklart
Why would you need a lot of funds?

(Honest question, I want to know).

joonix
I don't need a lot. I'm talking $50-$100k here, not millions in VC. I am pretty resourceful. Only one idea is solely web-based and could be bootstrapped. The others are B&M and require signing retail leases and building out storefront, etc. I also have to pay my own bare living expenses in the meantime.
silverlake
Yes, because I'd prefer an idea that can be bootstrapped into a profitable company. No dependency on ad revenue. No stupid consumer app that goes big or bust.
skarmklart
What's your financial goal? Lifestyle business?
netman21
My problem is too many ideas. They overwhelm me. I have started 18 companies. Most of them fail to take off. As I get older I have succeeded in fighting the idea-a-day syndrome.
skarmklart
Maybe post them on Firespotting.com then, clear out the gunk from your psychic RAM :)
zapu
Yes. I'm looking for a subtle idea, that doesn't necessarily make me millions, but keeps occupied and pays the rent. I have many ideas but they are too hard or need too much money to bootstrap.
skarmklart
Have you looked at any existing find-an-idea courses like Dane Maxwell's The Foundation, Amy Hoy's 30x500, Ramit Sethi's Earn1k, etc?
chudi
Yes, it isn't something about actually ideas, it's that somehow I don't think there is a market for them, they seem to be just dumb ideas.
meerita
My situation is like this:

1- I have 3 good ideas. 2. I've researched a lot and worked hard on specs, UX, UI, pitch, branding 3. Started to bootstrap as much as I can do (i'm not 100% engineer) 4. Looking for angel investment and vc.

My problemas are not the ideas, I ditch every single idea I can't validate it, my single problems are: finding a good co-founder, heavy coder so we can venture both in the ways of nerdism with the proyect and capital. I can't do code + capital search + company administration, etc. etc.

Every time I pitch my 2 biggest ideas people get shock but they're too ambitious and requiere, maybe 10 people working full time on it. After we validate the model with real people, the lean way, ofc.

skarmklart
What ways have you tried to find a co-founder?

Not trying to be snarky, I honestly want to know.

meerita
Well, because you need a partner who believe and want to sail in the same ship. Because that partner will suffer the same penalties you can suffer, like working for free for some time, having a low salary at the start, working extra hours, etc. Hiring someone to do the job is simply a problem because you can't afford paying one if you want quality.

But also, the few investors I've been talking in the past they want a formal team with a commitment thinking, and by saying you will just hire someone to do something is not enough, at least even on leaning.

rcavezza
I have a few ideas but none I'm passionate enough about to work on. I don't want to go down the rabbit hole of building something people don't want again.

Btw, I'm not able to fill in the email field on your website. (Firefox on Windows)

skarmklart
Thanks for the heads-up :)

If it still doesn't work then email me at info@howtofindsaasideas.com

grrowl
Some excellent ideas, but not enough time to develop them, and too risky or not obviously profitable enough for me to be able to quit full-time agency work (which would obviously be the goal). Ideas come easy, the kind that intersect with "potentially profitable within 6-12 months" are much rarer.
skarmklart
So you'd be interested in various tactics for testing if an idea is potentially profitable before you start developing?
lifeisstillgood
Can I suggest you use this forum as a way to test your ideas, publicise the book and get tons of real life examples

in short - how do I, with an idea, test it? How do I use AdWords, keyword search, mailchimp etc etc

Got a process - validate it here

(As I suspect you are)

wikwocket
Finding a (good) idea is challenging, but I feel there's lots of good advice (especially from some of HN's more prolific posters) on how to vet good ideas with some rigor.

I feel the bottleneck is in the validation phase. You can be brainstorming dozens of ideas, but to go anywhere with them, I feel you should research, talk to people, look at stats/trends, maybe build a brochure site/MVP and capture some leads, etc. These all take time, effort, (some) cost, and of course require the dreaded act of communicating with other human beings.

Idea work comes naturally to hackers, but communication doesn't. Plus, once you're considering communicate an idea to others, subconsciously you acknowledge that it might not be well-received or fail to take off. I believe that (in my case at least) this causes a big bottleneck. I'm always happy to ponder ideas, but seem to have less enthusiasm to do the legwork to validate them!

skarmklart
How do you usually go about communicating with people when validating the idea? Emails? Cold calling? Something else?

To whom do you reach out?

I hope to provide the reader with a good arsenal of tips and tricks on communication in my upcoming book, might be worth signing up for updates :) /shamelessplug

wikwocket
If I could completely answer this question, it would not be my bottleneck! ;)

What I have done: post a brochure site, promising more to come, and offering a free whitepaper/guidebook in exchange for an email subscription. Use free $100 Adwords coupon to send traffic there. Count email signups. Send out a newsletter to them, try to gauge engagement.

Other tactics I know of:

  - Offer pre-sales
  - Talk to business owners casually
  - Go to trade shows and chat
  - Offer surveys
  - Ask mechanical turk for feedback
  - Lurk in forums to see what people are discussing
  - Surf Amazon reviews to gauge how people feel about X
skarmklart
Can I do an interview with you for my book?

info@howtofindsaasideas.com :)

[deleted]
(comment deleted)