Earlier quoted context omitted.
Don't forget to do some research to see if it already exists, often it does.
If it does not exist, most probably there's no market for it.
There are no original ideas left? That's depressing.
Ask HN: How to find profitable side project idea?
111–120 of 214 posts
Re: Ask HN: How to find profitable side project idea?
#112Here are two ideas for desktop apps that I think would be worthwhile:
1) A data copy app. I often need to copy data from one place to another (eg. copy data from MS Access to a MySQL server, export data from PostgreSQL to CSV, fetch data from some REST API and insert it into PostgreSQL). There tools for some of those jobs (eg. CSV import / export from PostgreSQL is solved). But there are a lot of jobs where I end up needing to write a custom Python script just to batch import some data from somewhere. It would be lovely if I just had a GUI app that was built for moving data from A to B.
2) A simple reporting tool for PostgreSQL. Often I just want to create a quick report from some data in a database (eg. how many users have already updated to the latest version?), but I don't want to start learning something like Tableau. I wish there was something more lightweight and affordable for creating just an occasional graph or summary table.
Both of these could start out very simple (do just one little thing) and expand from there, so I think they would be suitable for a side project.
I also think those two ideas have a lot of potential to make money. It's a huge market, and there's plenty of money to be made if you focus on smaller customers or niches that are not interesing for the big players.
Re: Ask HN: How to find profitable side project idea?
#113Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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.
the mistake is to think that others have failed because they were not good enough. If 10 people tried before and failed, you can be darn sure that there's a good reason for those failures, and it's not lack of ability. When it comes to online software products, businesses always fail due to 2 problems: #1 no one wanted the product (or not enough) or #2 cost of acquiring customers was too high. These aren't going to b…
Key word: product market fit
The product has to be good enough to solve the problems of the market. #2 is also a downside of this - you can't dump marketing money to get around PMF.
Facebook is an interesting company which had a poor market (people are fine without it) but they managed to improve the product, the economics, the scale, just enough, and ended up one of the biggest companies in the world.
Re: Ask HN: How to find profitable side project idea?
#114Earlier quoted context omitted.
the mistake is to think that others have failed because they were not good enough. If 10 people tried before and failed, you can be darn sure that there's a good reason for those failures, and it's not lack of ability. When it comes to online software products, businesses always fail due to 2 problems: #1 no one wanted the product (or not enough) or #2 cost of acquiring customers was too high. These aren't going to b…
Key word: product market fit The product has to be good enough to solve the problems of the market. #2 is also a downside of this - you can't dump marketing money to get around PMF. Facebook is an interesting company which had a poor market (people are fine without it) but they managed to improve the product, the economics, the scale, just enough, and ended up one of the biggest companies in the world.
But, we're in established markets now. People have been using FB and many other sites for many years now and those behaviors are very much ingrained in people. There are only so many hours in a day someone can be online, so to some degree all new applications are competing with FB and the other incumbent apps. It's much much harder today than 10 or 15 years ago.
Re: Ask HN: How to find profitable side project idea?
#115The 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…
I’ve thought about doing this sort of thing, but co-opt a friend/colleague/someone your husband knows as the SME in the different industry. You need the insight in to that industry — by definition, you don’t have it. So find that person, and don’t just take their idea and leave. Work with them. Have them be the champion in the industry for this thing you make. Who knows best where the thing can be sold? They do!
I would add to that though, that while they are the expert in their industry, you would be surprised how experts can have blinders on regarding inefficiencies. So don't be afraid to ask questions and pitch ideas. I have seen plenty of experts that don't recognize huge pain points in their own industry because that's just the way it's always been done. You can be an expert in something, but if you aren't also an expert in software, you likely haven't thought of all the possibilities that software could solve for you.
Re: Ask HN: How to find profitable side project idea?
#116Earlier quoted context omitted.
I noticed that one too when I browsed 1k a few days back. It advertised that it was already making money. Congrats on your purchase,
That’s not the one I don’t think. It was listed on 1k projects 3 days agp for $950. And that’s not OP posting.
https://1kprojects.com/project/arthur
It is not?!
Re: Ask HN: How to find profitable side project idea?
#117Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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.
I think there is also a C) You might just be lucky when the other guys weren't. Sometimes, luck is as much a factor as hard work.
Also, there are tons of VC backed startups that "failed" because they couldn't squeeze enough profit out of their niche to pay for their exorbitant and lavish burn rate. A one-man, or very small team can find great profit where some of these bloated startups have failed.
Re: Ask HN: How to find profitable side project idea?
#118Re: Ask HN: How to find profitable side project idea?
#119I send out a daily newsletter with short snippets of pain points in different industries - http://www.oppsdaily.com Here is archive of sorts - http://www.oppslist.com The ideas are of a mediocre quality, but I find they help stimulate thought. Another idea is to go to a place like Fiverr and look at which services are most widely bought. Then build a saas solving one of those problems.
I looked at your list, sorted by "new": https://www.oppslist.com/?order=new
And the opportunities listed all seem at least a year old. That's not very "new", is it?
Re: Ask HN: How to find profitable side project idea?
#120Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
Not sure why this comment is being downvoted, it's a good point. The GP includes this quote, echoing many other people I've encountered who build software: > The business and industrial world largely still runs on excel spreadsheets, emails and word docs. Those are all areas ripe for new products and many of the top companies in those niche areas have no idea how to apply technology to solve their problems more effic…
While using those tools isn't a sure sign of an opportunity, I've rarely met someone running their business on spreadsheets that didn't wish they had some extra functionality or ability to scale up larger. Sure, some are plenty happy with Excel and email, but there are just as many that would pay for something better if it existed or if they knew about it.