Ask HN: Finding an idea of your own to work on as a programmer

What worked for me (oversimplified): 1. Find an interest you're excited about and/or spend a lot of money in (climbing). It'll be easier creating something of value for yourself. 2. Write down what could be improved there. Problems you run into. Solutions you use that suck, or chose not to use because they suck. Build your problem understanding. (developing climbing technique and staying hyped) 3. Find others who're interested in this space. (fellow climbers) 4. Build your problem understanding. Ask them what is challenging, frustrating or annoying for them as climbers. Ask them what they've tried or are trying and what they like/dislike. 5. Come up with a solution. Make something super small. A landing page that explains your idea. A brochure. Something ideally that you can make within a week. A day's even better. 6. Show your solution to people you'd consider customers. Ask them for feedback about how they think this could solve their problem. (for me I came up with an online program, designed a landing page with google sheets and showed it as if it was an actual website. Climbers gave me feedback that they wanted to know more about the practical way of learning - exercises, etc) 7. Repeat step 5&6 until you have confidence this is worth building. Then you've got your idea you're asking for. Congrats. You've ended up at the hardest point: figuring out how to execute on your idea and get all the parts right and figuring out how to sell and market it.

See if you can get some equity. That could solve your problem and it will keep you focused so it's in their interest to do that. This is why equity is useful as an employer. Whether that equity is worth a lot will depend on the plans for the company and the market opportunity.

In terms of your other question.. Paul Graham discusses it on his website but you have to make something people want. He also has an essay on how to get ideas. YC also publishes categories of startups they are interested in funding.

You don't even have to be original. There are 5+ ways to order take out or get groceries delivered.

Freelance and consulting can help you survey a broad spectrum of the market. If you are good, people will eventually come to you. Joining a big consultancy like McKinsey etc gives you insight into big company and big govt problems.

The other thing YC advises is to asks your customers what they want. Really listen to them.

In Sales you solve customer problems by asking "why are they asking me this question".

Would you be interested in collaborating with someone who has an idea and is on the business side of things? You can always add onto others ideas when working together.

I’d be interested in collaborating if you are.

"How To Get and Test Startup Ideas" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vDXkpJw16os.

I keep a list of problems when I notice them.

Finding unique ideas that make money is difficult. But most problems that exist don't require some insane intellectual insights. One problem is that developers don't have experience of other sectors apart from the IT field. Dive deep into stuff like Agriculture, Logistics or any other sector and you will see unique problems that can possibly be solved by unique solutions. But as another user said the market is big enough that you don't always need unique ideas.

Another little trick you can apply is searching for new startups in different countries. Like maybe some early stage startup in Singapore, Hong Kong or Israel might be solving something that might work in your country as well. You can definitely get unique 'ideas' to get inspired using this.