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How to Decide What to Build

dcgross.com

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Re: How to Decide What to Build

#61

Post by growt »

acconrad wrote: post #44
pryelluw wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't normally talk about this, but here is what you are missing: Businesses that make (real) money revolve around one of two ideas: - They sell shovels - They are middlemen (middlepeople?) They sell shovels. This is stolen from the old saying that during the American gold rush the people who made the money were the ones selling shovels. Or facilitating others to go and do what they wanted (in this case, chase a wi…

Thank you for this thorough and thoughtful response! Lots to soak in here. I agree, I am certainly not Elon Musk, there is no ego here. I'm just saying that the problem spaces I want to help with (environment, health/fitness/healthcare) don't seem like the problems I can effectively tackle because, as I mentioned before, I can't seem to find a way to divide-and-conquer into a smaller idea I can execute on. Do you hav…

Let me try: How about a variant of your "selling food to neighbors idea"? Build a platform where people can organize local "cooking clubs" (like meetup.com for cooking). You can find other people in your area who like to cook (sometimes) and everyone in the group makes a meal for the rest of the group, taking turns. That way, if and what is cooked is not your business (no regulation), you're just facilitating the meetups and schedules.

Re: How to Decide What to Build

#62

Post by lnsru »

hndamien wrote: post #27
goatherders wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After my first startup went down in a burst of flames I spent years angry at everyone and everything like a big black tumor carried inside my heart. It sounds dramatic but that doesn't make it untrue. I learned a lot but I lost a lot more.

I currently have one of these tumours.

Take some time off, do something totally different. After my biggest fail I spent 3 days in water filled caves. New experience partially erased these bad emotions. But they are not completely gone even after 10 years.

Re: How to Decide What to Build

#63

Post by kzisme »

Many times when people ask what to build or work on (much like the author) are told to focus on things they need - Scratch your own itch! Lately I haven't really found many things to focus on working on due to this. I highly doubt I can think of many things in my life that would be close to a "stand up comedy routine".

I mostly just want to figure out something I can work on in my spare time to learn outside of work. It doesn't have to be a business (although I wouldn't be upset if it eventually turned into that), but even having a userbase would be a fun experience.

Re: How to Decide What to Build

#64

Post by mft_ »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #48
tropshop wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did the massive regulation on the taxi industry stop Uber? If you build something people find genuinely useful, you will become a force that causes the market to adapt. Regulation follows innovation.

I'm founding Uber for Biotech. No biosafety regulation is going to stop us from CRISPRing our way into better future! Seriously though, I get that archaic rules need to be fought in order to be changed. But there are proper ways to do that, and Uber did it in about the most antisocial way possible aside from murdering people. Please, don't be like Uber. Innovations need a stable society to flourish.

Eh. No defence of the way Kalanick or some of his minions acted in certain situations, but... Uber was entering an incredibly difficult space, given the power and entrenchment of the existing taxi business/lobby, and the generally anti-innovation and protectionist approach of many local politicians.

Without their 'hustle' and willingness to take steps which were risky, relatively antisocial, and often illegal (e.g. entering cities illegally first and asking for permission later, organising pretty challenging pressure campaigns against local politicians, authorities, etc.) they'd not have made it past a year, let alone revolutionised an industry.

Their downfall was applying the same risk and hustle mentality indiscriminately, including within their own company.

Re: How to Decide What to Build

#65

Post by ShroudedNight »

jcadam wrote: post #23
goatherders wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just because you learn something doesn't mean the time isnt wasted. If you try to make a business of it and it doesn't work...more wasted time. Wasted relationships. Wasted money. Wasted confidence. I'm all for the silver lining of having learned something. That's good for sure. But there are almost always costs when building anything from model cars to software applications.

> Wasted confidence. This is probably the biggest factor (money is the least). I've had numerous failed projects. I have a current project/business (it's in my profile) which I believe to be in the process of failing. I don't know if I have another one in me. Sure, I've learned a lot. From a purely technical standpoint, each new project has been superior to the one before - and in the case of my latest, I've at least…

I assume you're referring to https://www.contabulo.com

With the disclaimer that I'm nothing more than an oddly engaged person on the internet, and least of all a marketing expert, and the caveat that I'm not even likely the target market for this:

1) How does this remain sticky for the long term contrary to traditional wikis?

2) How is this different from other virtual card / sticky note project management options like Zenhub or Trello?

3) What is supposed to be compelling about the demo boards? I can see how the product can potentially fill different niches, but none of them show how productivity is significantly improved as a result.

4) Is the price of $7 a month a per user price?

In case it's not obvious, I don't personally need the answer to these questions.

I think you could be much more direct and clear about your value. I sort-of get the sense that you're almost ashamed at the possibility that you're better than everything else at solving your chosen problem. But I think both you and your prospective customer would be better served by you directly speaking to the pain you're addressing and why / how your unique solution addresses things better than any other offering you're aware of.

Signing up is a pain. How feasible would an immediate ephemeral instance be, where the user signs up in order to save their work? Assuming I'm normal, I'd expect users to be a lot more likely to sign up if they're already convinced that they want something vs still in the 'this looks potentially interesting' stage.

I also wonder if you're somewhat low-balling yourself at what I assume is $7 per user month, especially given this is mostly a business oriented product.

I think this looks cool, and has the potential to significantly lower engagement friction compared to other solutions, but would like some guidance to condense those good feelings into a clear value proposition.

Anyway, hopefully that was useful enough to warrant reading.

Re: How to Decide What to Build

#66

Post by rorykoehler »

acconrad wrote: post #28

One of the points the author makes is that you should track the problems you have, and the ones that reoccur will be good signals to solve them. Does anyone else feel pretty content with what they have? Because this strategy I think Paul Graham has talked about in one of his essays for ideas. And to be honest, I do genuinely feel like I don't have much if anything to complain about, and so I can't really think of sta…

>Can you crowdsource cooking from your neighbors?

They have what is essentially this service in Singapore. Professional kitchens that make home cooked meals. Very popular.

Re: How to Decide What to Build

#67

Post by newman8r »

qw wrote: post #58
newman8r wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can relate to your sentiment of being content with what you have. I gave up my smartphone, I canceled all paid subscription services, I use linux and open source software for everything. Basically, it's difficult for me to imagine personally paying for any type of SAAS offering, so when I'm working on a project with a paid model, sometimes I have to employ a 'suspension of disbelief' because I'm working on somethin…

For a business, everything has a cost. Let's say you need to a payment solution. Most will use something like Stripe instead of hiring new teams of developers to implement from scratch. The same can be said about smaller services too. Something that sounds simple, like sending emails is actually very time consuming due to spam-filters etc. First you have the initial work, and then you have all the follow up during th…

That's a good point, I like the idea of identifying solutions using a cost-benefit approach.

Re: How to Decide What to Build

#68

Post by mft_ »

murukesh_s wrote: post #49
acconrad wrote: post #28

One of the points the author makes is that you should track the problems you have, and the ones that reoccur will be good signals to solve them. Does anyone else feel pretty content with what they have? Because this strategy I think Paul Graham has talked about in one of his essays for ideas. And to be honest, I do genuinely feel like I don't have much if anything to complain about, and so I can't really think of sta…

Having a pain point and validating it with a set of other users is a good vector for success. While that is true I have seen/heard/read many ideas that are brainstormed in a room and selected at random becoming widely successful. Anyway, regarding food you could have thought about a machine/robot based solution, at least to begin with :)

I disagree. Many people lack the vision, or sometimes the same negative experience to understand that something needs changing, of people with the original idea. And people often default to the negative, in my experience.

Brainstorm Uber with a group of people and you'd get challenges that taxis already exist and are fine, that laws stand in your way, and that people wouldn't want to get in a stranger's car.

Or to misquote (I think?) Steve Jobs, if Henry Ford had asked his users what they'd wanted before building the Model T, they'd have asked for a faster horse.

Re: How to Decide What to Build

#69

Post by rorykoehler »

newman8r wrote: post #43
acconrad wrote: post #28

One of the points the author makes is that you should track the problems you have, and the ones that reoccur will be good signals to solve them. Does anyone else feel pretty content with what they have? Because this strategy I think Paul Graham has talked about in one of his essays for ideas. And to be honest, I do genuinely feel like I don't have much if anything to complain about, and so I can't really think of sta…

I can relate to your sentiment of being content with what you have. I gave up my smartphone, I canceled all paid subscription services, I use linux and open source software for everything. Basically, it's difficult for me to imagine personally paying for any type of SAAS offering, so when I'm working on a project with a paid model, sometimes I have to employ a 'suspension of disbelief' because I'm working on somethin…

That just tells me you value money more than your time. Most people have this the other way around. You can always make more money but you can't make more time.

Re: How to Decide What to Build

#70

Post by greggman »

> validate your market

how do you do this? Smartphones existed as PDAs for 10-20yrs before iPhone. If I had shown someone my Sony Clie and said "if I make this work with your finger instead of a stylus, simplify the UI, and charge you $80+ a month for service would you be interested?". except for a few geeks like myself the answer would have been "no, that stuff is for geeks" for most people and yet here we are 10 years later and everyone has a smartphone.

So I don't really see how to "validate your market". I've got a few ideas I'm 99% sure would be successful given the correct marketing and PR but because they are new or at least new for a given country people tell me they don't get it, not interested. They might be right but it might also just something they need to correctly ibtroduced to.

Netflix comes up in my mind as an example. It seems obvious but if you'd asked Mom and Dad if they wanted internet movies 10 yrs ago theyd have looked at you like your crazy

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