There's nothing wrong with competing with dozens of companies, just don't expect overnight success.
Ask HN: Solopreneurs, how did you come up with your idea?
71–80 of 92 posts
Re: Ask HN: Solopreneurs, how did you come up with your idea?
#72> but everything I create or try to do seems like there are already dozens of other solutions doing the same thing The major lesson I have after +20 years doing this: WHO CARES. This concern is valid for a huge company or anybody that wanna get like 70% of the whole market. For solo/small teams? Think of yourself as a street cart vendor that sells hamburgers, and is located on the front of mac donalds. They still sel…
Looking for niches where no one else is building is overrated (I say this as someone who chose to start the 200th uptime monitor in 2021).
Tell a prospect/customer that you'll do something, actually do it, and you'll be better than 99% of the businesses out there.
Re: Ask HN: Solopreneurs, how did you come up with your idea?
#73> but everything I create or try to do seems like there are already dozens of other solutions doing the same thing The major lesson I have after +20 years doing this: WHO CARES. This concern is valid for a huge company or anybody that wanna get like 70% of the whole market. For solo/small teams? Think of yourself as a street cart vendor that sells hamburgers, and is located on the front of mac donalds. They still sel…
Looking for niches where no one else is building is overrated (I say this as someone who chose to start the 200th uptime monitor in 2021). Tell a prospect/customer that you'll do something, actually do it, and you'll be better than 99% of the businesses out there.
Agree, agree, agree.
This is how you make great margins, work with people who want you to work with them, and you have no fear of the competition increasing CPC etc. Can also be more rewarding.
Once you have a decade in startups, you realize this is incredibly important. Not only that, when you do seek funding, being unique is a plus: You'll be dismissed outright or you'll be accepted. That's way more useful that being "in the ball pit" for "possible investment in our coming financial years".
Re: Ask HN: Solopreneurs, how did you come up with your idea?
#74One sample point of one person's experience: Product's built based on brainstorming: NEVER worked. Product built around solution to actual problems I've experienced: Always worked, BUT may not have a large enough TAM. The best way to actually find problems to solve is to replicate something else (as a learning process to actually find the real product you need to build), or talk to people who have problems: e.g. Try…
That does seem like the best way to go about it, but I have family who are doctors and they frequently talk about how tired they are of tech guys who read "The Mom Test" who now skulk around asking probing questions about pain points in a doctors daily work. It just seems like any time there is a repeatable process for doing something, people will latch onto it and then do it until it is totally exhausted. Tech Entre…
Exactly.
The unspoken thing about startups/the mom test is that now the majority of startups try to do it that way.
Well, 90% of startups still fail.
So why do the thing that 90% of the time doesn't work?
Really successful startups tend to be strongly unique and lead by a few years of personal experience with the problem. Perseverance and defiance(to the way things are/problem remaining) can't be bought though and it won't sell a book.
Re: Ask HN: Solopreneurs, how did you come up with your idea?
#75Having existing solutions is not necessarily a bad thing, it means there's a market and paying customers. On the surface many companies sound similar but often are going in different directions once you look into the details. Here's what worked for me: look for an important and frequent problem that you and people you know have, where the solutions are inadequate and people are not happy. To know if you're going in t…
sounds like ChatGPT.
Re: Ask HN: Solopreneurs, how did you come up with your idea?
#76Earlier quoted context omitted.
I like the dry cleaner example. How many dry cleaners are there? Do you go to the best one, or do you go to the one you know exists and is convenient.
The problem with this analogy is that in the case of software, you basically have teleportation so you can go to any dry cleaner you want instantaneously.
Except that you often don’t know the alternative. You might suspect it must exist, but finding things on the internet is increasingly difficult.
Same is actually true with the dry cleaners. Maybe there’s one on the back of your block that’s the same distance from your door as the one you go to, but you never walked around to that side before. As far as you know, you are already using the closest one.
Re: Ask HN: Solopreneurs, how did you come up with your idea?
#77Earlier quoted context omitted.
Looking for niches where no one else is building is overrated (I say this as someone who chose to start the 200th uptime monitor in 2021). Tell a prospect/customer that you'll do something, actually do it, and you'll be better than 99% of the businesses out there.
Agree, agree, agree. This is how you make great margins, work with people who want you to work with them, and you have no fear of the competition increasing CPC etc. Can also be more rewarding. Once you have a decade in startups, you realize this is incredibly important. Not only that, when you do seek funding, being unique is a plus: You'll be dismissed outright or you'll be accepted. That's way more useful that bei…
Oh nevermind, I must have misread your comment (or you updated it) to represent the opposite. I think looking for under-seen/under-resolved niches is useful.
Re: Ask HN: Solopreneurs, how did you come up with your idea?
#78Just start helping friends around you with their problems (at work). At some point you will bump into a problem that you find interesting and has a potential market.
Re: Ask HN: Solopreneurs, how did you come up with your idea?
#79One sample point of one person's experience: Product's built based on brainstorming: NEVER worked. Product built around solution to actual problems I've experienced: Always worked, BUT may not have a large enough TAM. The best way to actually find problems to solve is to replicate something else (as a learning process to actually find the real product you need to build), or talk to people who have problems: e.g. Try…
That does seem like the best way to go about it, but I have family who are doctors and they frequently talk about how tired they are of tech guys who read "The Mom Test" who now skulk around asking probing questions about pain points in a doctors daily work. It just seems like any time there is a repeatable process for doing something, people will latch onto it and then do it until it is totally exhausted. Tech Entre…
I think that's not a but, what those tech guys should do is to build and run an entire hospital. Exactly that isn't realistic, but something along that.
1: https://toyotatimes.jp/en/series/beyondmobility/004.html
2: https://global.toyota/en/mobility/frontier-research/40390293...
Re: Ask HN: Solopreneurs, how did you come up with your idea?
#80> but everything I create or try to do seems like there are already dozens of other solutions doing the same thing The major lesson I have after +20 years doing this: WHO CARES. This concern is valid for a huge company or anybody that wanna get like 70% of the whole market. For solo/small teams? Think of yourself as a street cart vendor that sells hamburgers, and is located on the front of mac donalds. They still sel…
Looking for niches where no one else is building is overrated (I say this as someone who chose to start the 200th uptime monitor in 2021). Tell a prospect/customer that you'll do something, actually do it, and you'll be better than 99% of the businesses out there.
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