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Ask HN: How did you find your great side project idea?

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Re: Ask HN: How did you find your great side project idea?

#11

Post by brightball »

Not that I've had any time to do them, but I have often written up entire business plans just based off of profiting from something that makes me angry.

For example, when I had a contract programming business 10 years ago I absolutely despised the RFP process. I still have a business plan sitting around built entirely around that flow. I still hate the RFP process, but I figured if this thing is going to still be a thing I may as well make money off of it.

If I ever had free time to just sit and build stuff day after day you'd end up with this entire incoherent set of businesses based on things that I couldn't stand. :)

Re: Ask HN: How did you find your great side project idea?

#12

Post by treve »

My side projects tend to be libraries for other programmers. I usually get ideas by using existing libraries but being unhappy with the interface / api they offer. I love designing good apis that express the underlying concepts well, while hiding implementation details, and while many niche libraries have a good solution for their problem domain, many are lacking in api / UX.

Re: Ask HN: How did you find your great side project idea?

#13

Post by bricej13 »

I solved my own problem. I cut the cord two years ago, but I love to watch college football. When doing research this year to figure out where to stream each game, I realized that a lot of people would be doing this same research.

I built [https://wherecaniwatchmy.team] as a site specifically for determining which streaming service is best for watching a specific sports team.

I'm no entrepreneur, but I think it's something that could actually turn into a basic side income.

Re: Ask HN: How did you find your great side project idea?

#14

Post by thisislance98 »

I was working as mobile game developer and came across a 3rd party tool called Particle Designer which was just fun to play with so I created an app out of it called Magic Fingers which didn't take off for a year and now has around 2 million downloads. [https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/magic-fingers-lite/id4988704...]

Re: Ask HN: How did you find your great side project idea?

#17

Post by shanecleveland »

gschier wrote: post #8

I solved a problem that I had at work. I needed a tool to make interacting with HTTP APIs easier, and didn't like any of the existing ones, so I created Insomnia [ https://insomnia.rest/ ]. It took a weekend to build a proof of concept, then I released it to the public. As I improved it, the user base grew slowly. Then, a year later, I was able to quit my job to pursue it full-time. If you're curious, I have an Inter…

I've built a few internal tools for work that have also become publicly-used tools. Nothing generating salary-replacing revenue. But the point is that you may already be doing it, or it may be staring you in the face. Great "ideas" don't have to come from moments of creative brilliance.

Re: Ask HN: How did you find your great side project idea?

#18

Post by dhruvkar »

Be naturally and deeply engaged in a community.

This could be anything that you naturally find interesting - books, art, armadillos, roofing etc. Engage with other people that also find this topic interesting.

It'll take several months, but you'll uncover more problems than you'll have time for. And the best part - you now get to pick a problem you care about, and build a solution for it.

Re: Ask HN: How did you find your great side project idea?

#20

Post by rhizome »

I can't say I have any great ideas, but they sure keep popping into my head involuntarily. It feels weird to me for people surf the web without frustration, never thinking to themselves, "what if this, but without the annoying/hard to use stuff?" If you do do that, then those are ideas.
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