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How to Decide What to Build

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Re: How to Decide What to Build

#121

Post by bkcreate »

growt wrote: post #61
acconrad wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 mee…

At that point why not just organize a meetup and charge admission instead of reinventing the wheel?

Re: How to Decide What to Build

#122

Post by baxtr »

pryelluw wrote: post #107
baxtr wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about Apple?

Shovels. The bicycle of the mind is selling people on something they want. The iPhone, aside from being a technological leap over other phones in the market, allowed people to feel better than others by the simple act of ownership. Everything in their repertoire revolves around selling more shovels. Remember the app store rush? What fueled it? The opportunity to make an app and get rich.

Well, yeah, fine. But that analogy is so generic, that every product is a shovel. BMW sells shovels, Apple sells shovels, IKEA sells shovels.

In your worldview all of life is just a gold rush. I'm not sure if I find that analogy useful.

Re: How to Decide What to Build

#123

Post by vinceguidry »

animal531 wrote: post #112
vinceguidry wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Between a WaterPik flosser and a Sonicare electric toothbrush, I've knocked my daily dental hygiene time down to like 4 minutes. It would be really hard to improve on that combo.

What about something you just bite onto (a bit like a boxer's mouthguard) that cleans your teeth while you're doing something else? Then it's down to effectively 15 seconds.

I didn't say it was impossible.

Re: How to Decide What to Build

#124

Post by bronco21016 »

animal531 wrote: post #112
vinceguidry wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Between a WaterPik flosser and a Sonicare electric toothbrush, I've knocked my daily dental hygiene time down to like 4 minutes. It would be really hard to improve on that combo.

What about something you just bite onto (a bit like a boxer's mouthguard) that cleans your teeth while you're doing something else? Then it's down to effectively 15 seconds.

Apparently 3 seconds. [1]

[1] https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/unico-smartbrush--3#/

Re: How to Decide What to Build

#125

Post by swaggyBoatswain »

chrischen wrote: post #78
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 built Instapainting.com to serve customers and have not personally had a reason to use the service myself. Essentially I have to do more guesswork and testing, but it can be done. Not all services have to be built to satisfy your own needs, and arguably at some point all services must grow to beyond one’s own needs. So it’s a necessary skill to develop and required at some point to grow and serve new niches or new…

I read through your indiehackers post and it was very interesting to see your approach on SEO, e.g. viral marketing with interesting side projects

Re: How to Decide What to Build

#126

Post by skariel123 »

pryelluw wrote: post #40
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 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…

if I build a gam then what is it as shovel? people will not makemoney out of it. I'm also not a middleman because there's just me and the end customer, I vuilt it from scratch. So who am I?!

Re: How to Decide What to Build

#127

Post by Erlich_Bachman »

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…

Regarding your specific problem, maybe it's not as grim as you see, you just have to think bigger and farther ahead: I am talking of course about Robot Kitchens. After automated driving this will probably be the next big frontier.

This seems to be the state of the art: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNcPVvIs_tk http://www.moley.com/about-us/

They state that the consumer version is set to launch in 2018. It will probably take several more years to work out all the kinks. But this is likely the actual future of cooking, not the local outsourcing.

Re: How to Decide What to Build

#128

Post by Erlich_Bachman »

vinceguidry wrote: post #106
dalbasal wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Advice like "validate your market," strategies for chicken-egg problems, or the first point (start from a beachhead).... These are not the same as "get a good accountant" or "incorporate this way." They're not hurdles to pass with good advice in specific detail. These are problems that need clever & creative solutions, and the answers usually aren't do exactly what you are doing now and also this thing. AirBnB starte…

This is good insight, and I upvoted you for it, but it doesn't really answer his question. Validating your market is business speak for making sure that you won't lose a ton of money at launch, assuming your execution isn't horrible. All you have to do is to collect some amount of interest through something like a landing page. It won't guarantee runaway success, but it won't break the bank either.

It does exactly answer the question. It's just that the answer is not what most people expect: an algorithm. Some problems have simple solutions, or simple explanations. Other problems require deep consideration and almost philosophical shifts in one's mind. There is no algorithm for this problem. This requires creative process. Creative process is impossible to describe in a couple of sentences in a way that will be enough to teach it to someone.

Re: How to Decide What to Build

#129

Post by isseu »

pryelluw wrote: post #115
acconrad wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Map, filter, and reduce your ideas. Health, fitness, and healthcare all fall into the same bucket. However, the money is in helping companies operate more efficiently. Lots of great opportunities in the area of automation. I would start talking to people who work in healthcare companies about how they process their data. They still rely heavily on copying and pasting from excel spreadsheets. To give you an idea, I ju…

Is efficiency/automation what company wants? I am in the process of selling a inventory SAAS for medium size retail companies that helps them reduce a lot of labor everyday but I have trouble selling it. The companies don't see the value, they already have people doing this labor and I have seen that they are much more interesting in selling more that efficiency in the process. This at least for medium size companies.

Re: How to Decide What to Build

#130

Post by jeffmould »

pryelluw wrote: post #40
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 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…

I know this doesn't add much to the conversation here, but I just had to say this might be one of the most well thought out and clearly articulated responses I have seen here in a long time.
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