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Ask HN: How to find problems worth solving?

15 points by thomaaas ↗ HN
Hi HN!

I will be free for the next few weeks, and I want to build an MVP to a) gain some experience, b) have a cool project on my resume, and c) maybe make some money.

I know how to make a website, how to design, how to do marketing, how to do conversion optimization, etc. My only issue is... I don't know what to build. And I definitely don't want to build a useless product.

So my question is simple: any advice on how to find problems worth solving? Thanks!

14 comments

[ 3.3 ms ] story [ 27.8 ms ] thread
pmtarantino
It has to be more than just "worth solving". I can think in a few ideas "worth solving" just like that. It has to be good enough so people pay for it.

A lot of people would like to have X feature, X website, X software. Would they pay for it? Ask that question. For what would you pay for right now?

For example: I am starting to selling goods. I'd like a place where I put all my good purchases from ebay, alliexpress or wherever, and I can track it, see when it will arrive, how much stock I have left, etc.

johnmurch
1) Solve a problem that YOU face or someone you know faces/has 2) Start small and think big 3) Saw this list - https://medium.com/design-startups/49acac7c3405 lots of stuff popped up but saw "A bookmarklet to help people manage their job search — the job search process sucks. Let people use a bookmarklet to track jobs they like, which they’ve applied to, and the rest" and was like.. WOW - NO one does this. It's super simple and the process sucks for all of us, but could be a simple way to build out a MVP and generate $

Just a thought - Good Luck!

redspark
1. Pick a niche or industry you want to work with.

2. Get in touch with owners/managers in your chosen area.

3. Take them to lunch and discuss their business. Watch their face and when they show you a pain point, try to pinpoint the cause.

4. You should discover more than a few problems they would spend money to have solved if you talk to enough of them.

5. Follow up with an email thanking them for their time and mention again how you have been giving some thought to a particular pain point. Try to find an article, software package, etc that attempts to solve their pain point and send them the link.

6. Build a true MVP (should be embarrassing, yet offer value to them), and follow-up with an email. Tell them you have been thinking more about their problem and wrote up a quick dirty app that might help them. Offer to demo it for them. While demoing discuss how much their pain costs their business.

7. Iterate based on their collective feedback.

8. Based on the discussion about pain costs, come up with a value-based price for your solution.

9. Refine your MVP, follow-up with another demo. Sell them a subscription to your solution. It may still be rough, but you should be able to demonstrate value and savings compared to their pain costs. CLOSE THE DEAL.

10. Follow-up

11. Iterate

12. Follow-up

13. Iterate

14. Follow-up

15. Iterate

16...Rinse... Repeat.

thomaaas
Thanks, that looks like a good way to find a profitable startup idea. But here I'm just looking for a small side project idea, and I'd like to find it quickly. So taking random people to lunch seems a bit overkill.
lifeisstillgood
Do it anyway.

You learn far far more about an industry talking to someone immersed in it than any other way.

If you just want to spend the next few weeks coding, there are any number of github projects. If you want a side project - trust me, it will run and run for months if not years.

Get your linkedin page up, and find an admin at a local hospital, a CEO at a local charity. Take them to lunch.

go.

[dead] buwiz
Can you help us build out this prototype (www.insp-i.com)? You could even join us as tech co-founder.
joeldidit
Ask a lot of people. Ask them about their daily frustrations. Ask them to share what they think the big problems of the world are. Post on forums online, go into chat rooms, etc.
Jemaclus
Talk to people. People love to complain, especially about their jobs. They'll complain about their pain points. Listen for one that seems interesting.
helen842000
People often look for pain points in an area they like.

However the pain points that you actually should solve are the ones that drive you crazy, that make you woof in annoyance when they just don't work. Stuff that you know you 'should' do but find a way to put it off. People tend to stay away from these areas because - well they hate them!

Yet that is where the solutions are needed the most.

Some pain points that really frustrate me :-

* Getting an e-mail with an attachment that I have to print out, fill in, sign, scan back to my e-mail and then attach back to the receipient. That is just far too many steps. I don't think the likes of 'Sign Now' cut it because that relies on the sender sending it in that format. It needs to be a solution for the recipient.

* Setting up mailing lists.

* Formatting & nice templates for e-books.

* Following up enquiries x number of days after I sent a quote.

* Tracking the ROI from different advertising methods (adwords, print advertising, facebook etc)

* Tracking all the issues & bugs I fix at work to prove my productivity.

Don't pick what you WANT to work on. Pick something that is currently a pain in the ass and feel the benefit of your own solution.

pdenya
>Tracking all the issues & bugs I fix at work to prove my productivity.

I really like this idea, so frustrating that fogbugz doesn't have a "all the issues I modified today" filter (that I can find).

As an aside, there's room for improvement in this area but check out our (HelloSign) extension at http://hellosign.com/gmail, simplifies your first bullet point significantly.

helen842000
Wow, HelloSign looks spot on for what I was looking for, thanks!
buwiz
Can you help us build out this prototype (www.insp-i.com)? You could even join us as tech co-founder.