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Ask HN: How to find profitable side project idea?

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Re: Ask HN: How to find profitable side project idea?

#21

Post by TAForObvReasons »

ageitgey wrote: post #6

The world is full of people in your situation who's main area of interest and experience is primarily in software development or start-ups. Because of this, almost every good idea that touches your entire realm of experience been attempted 10 times. There's tons of competition even for really bad ideas - just look at how many start-ups in SF tried to offer "laundry as a service"! The secret is to go out and make frie…

> almost every good idea that touches your entire realm of experience been attempted 10 times

I strongly disagree with the implied defeatism here. There have been many attempts and many failures with many popular ideas for non-obvious reasons, and it is worth being #11 if you can A) identify why the previous attempts failed, and B) find a different angle that avoids the issues.

Re: Ask HN: How to find profitable side project idea?

#22

Post by modeless »

stevenwliao wrote: post #13
modeless wrote: post #12

> I have read books and blogs suggesting that the best problem is the one that I have faced before. I agree with this advice, but my problem is that most problems I have faced are software development problems. I have tons of great ideas for software development tools that would be super cool. However, there is no market for selling software development tools, because everyone is used to getting them for free from op…

Many companies are happy to pay for IntelliJ, Docker, and GitHub. I think it depends on which tools you choose to build.

GitHub is a good example of a software development tool that is a cloud service instead of a local program, and thus has an easy and effective monetization strategy. Still, though, the vast majority use it for free.

IntelliJ and Docker give most of their products away for free. Why? Probably mostly because there is no good solution to licensing local software. They rely on the patronage of a relative few corporations, who have legal departments that will enforce the licensing rules on their behalf to avoid legal risk. Unfortunately that means that their business is an enterprise licensing business which is difficult to break into. Success in enterprise licensing is less about product quality and more about sales. That's not the kind of business I'd like to be in.

Re: Ask HN: How to find profitable side project idea?

#23

Post by TAForObvReasons »

ronilan wrote: post #20
ageitgey wrote: post #6

The world is full of people in your situation who's main area of interest and experience is primarily in software development or start-ups. Because of this, almost every good idea that touches your entire realm of experience been attempted 10 times. There's tons of competition even for really bad ideas - just look at how many start-ups in SF tried to offer "laundry as a service"! The secret is to go out and make frie…

You use “the world is full” twice. First to describe the high supply of software developers looking for projects and second to describe the high demand for said services. So why hasn’t supply met demand? Why isn’t the market working more efficiently? There can be various explanations for that, obviously, including the lack of information you hint at ( “secret” , “have no idea” ), but Occam's Razor would suggest we ex…

There's strong demand at a competitive price point and acceptable license terms.

Even though many software companies and startups are trying to push SaaS software "rental" terms, many of the market participants are looking for a one-time purchase more similar to "ownership"

Re: Ask HN: How to find profitable side project idea?

#24

Post by ydnaclementine »

modeless wrote: post #12

> I have read books and blogs suggesting that the best problem is the one that I have faced before. I agree with this advice, but my problem is that most problems I have faced are software development problems. I have tons of great ideas for software development tools that would be super cool. However, there is no market for selling software development tools, because everyone is used to getting them for free from op…

I'm sure there's an argument where, on a personal level, releasing software open source can lead to financial gain by opening up opportunities to new jobs, fame, etc. It's good resume material, especially if the scope is smaller.

For an extreme case, it worked for Linus

Re: Ask HN: How to find profitable side project idea?

#25

Post by elorant »

There are tons of problems that haven't been solved. Best way to identify one is to get involved with small companies and find their pain points. Especially ones not directly involved in technology. Think about commerce shops for example. Or art shops. Or food shops. You have to gain experience from the inside to come up with an idea, or if that's not possible just go ahead and ask them directly to name a few of their issues.

I did a consulting gig for an art gallery a couple years ago and I came up with a dozen ideas by watching how they operated. I'm sure the same applies for a gazillion of markets out there, ones where technology isn't that dominant.

Side note. You may want to take a look at the famous "passive income" threads in here. There are hundreds of ideas and projects in them that could inspire you to build something new. Just make a search for "passive" on the search box at the bottom and good reading.

Re: Ask HN: How to find profitable side project idea?

#26

Post by bargl »

My best idea to help came from when I was working at a Auto Body shop and I was able to help them optimize their books. They used to dread doing a simple export from Excel into a Tax software system (I forget which one) but I converted it to some weird proprietary format and they could import it.

It's not what I'd (personally) start a startup on, but the idea is there. I was also super green and coding in VB so I'm glad I let that miss. If you can get in with a small business owner and see where they're spending repeated human cycles for data entry, you can potentially have an idea.

Re: Ask HN: How to find profitable side project idea?

#27

Post by airstrike »

Think about which experiences in your life (or other people's lives) have key pain points that we wish didn't exist. Then think hard about ways to overcome those.

Alternatively, think about trade-offs that you or people in general feel forced to make, and try to build something that offers a compromise, a third alternative that previously didn't exist. That's innovation.

Re: Ask HN: How to find profitable side project idea?

#28

Post by Varcht »

sosborn wrote: post #15
Varcht wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't forget to do some research to see if it already exists, often it does.

The fact that something already exists doesn't exclude the possibility of making money off of that idea. In fact, it actually validates the thought that the idea is viable.

In fact, it actually validates the thought that the idea is viable.

Not sure you can go that far. The first part of your statement sounds reasonable though.

Re: Ask HN: How to find profitable side project idea?

#29

Post by brianbreslin »

@adamfaliq here are my bulletpoint suggestions: - find something people are doing in excel over and over, make it a saas (search google keywords for excel templates) - find something that currently costs people time to do (some form of shopify work?) and automate it or make it a profit center for someone - pick an existing marketplace (salesforce, shopify, magento, etc) and build something there so you're spending less on marketing and know there is a built in audience used to paying for things

at its core it is a matter of can you save people money? time? or can you make them more money? those are the reasons people pay for things. Also competing on price alone is a fools errand.

feel free to email me for more help, i literally do this for a living (helping students generate and grow their businesses at a university).

Re: Ask HN: How to find profitable side project idea?

#30

Post by jonnyrockit »

I was lucky and found a small little gem on 1kprojects.com that turned itself into a nice little profitable side-project in 5 weeks (not linking to it because i don't want to seem like I'm advertising). Making half my monthly salary at my day job from it.

Sometimes it's just the simplest, least technical and gimmicky things that make money.

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