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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?

#201

Post by totololo »

jjeaff wrote: post #122
0xdeadbeefbabe wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well I will doubt the supply side. I think it's a simpler assertion, because I know so few nerds.

I think if you live in silicon valley, you have a distorted view of how many people can build software. I grew up in the mid-south and know of literally one or two other people that code. I know live in a major metro area and still only know maybe 3 people that code. It is actually a rare skill. At the same time, I can't even count how many contractors, real estate agents, sales and marketing, and doctors and lawyers…

Global dev population is 20M. If the global workforce is 4B people, that's 5 per thousand. Not much indeed.

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

#202

Post by totololo »

gremlinsinc wrote: post #181
antoineMoPa wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not that I want to be anti-innovation, but what if spreadsheets allow the user to be more in control, have more flexibility and avoid monthly payments of 3-5 cloud services? Maybe replacing every spreadsheet is not optimal.

Airtables is a good example, though -- I'm seriously thinking of creating an OSS version of Airtables, that has more field types -- like being able to edit using Markdown... or join across bases, not just tables.. There's SO much more you could do w/ their tech, and blocks should be free - just they should have a marketplace and take a cut of sales--something like shopify... if I OSS'd it, I'd do some hybrid like wor…

would be amazing!

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

#203

Post by SmushyTaco »

You could make a simple but useful app and bundle ads with it to gain profit from that and have an in-app purchase to remove ads for even more profit. Like for example: You could make a calculator that appeals to people taking geometry like a Pythagorean Theorem calculator that shows the answer and work. Your best bet is to pick something easy that appeals to a group of people.

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

#204

Post by gremlinsinc »

totololo wrote: post #202
gremlinsinc wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Airtables is a good example, though -- I'm seriously thinking of creating an OSS version of Airtables, that has more field types -- like being able to edit using Markdown... or join across bases, not just tables.. There's SO much more you could do w/ their tech, and blocks should be free - just they should have a marketplace and take a cut of sales--something like shopify... if I OSS'd it, I'd do some hybrid like wor…

would be amazing!

Features I'd like to build into it: Bubble like app from spreadsheets. Hosted and oss version. Extra types: json, md, xml, etc. Time tracker.

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

#205

Post by jklepatch »

balls187 wrote: post #85
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…

> The secret is to go out and make friends who work in different industries that are totally unrelated to your experience. I'd slightly rephrase this: make friends who are business owners in different industries. Having a good idea is only the first step. You need to be able to market it, and ultimately sell it. Business owners face business problems, will have an idea on how much they're willing to spend on it, and…

“I would slightly rephrase this: make friends who are business owners in different industries.”

I find it difficult to put in place a process to consistently meet business owners.

Some ideas: - going to meetups or better organizing one - going to conferences or better give a talk - be part of mastermind groups (but dont know where to find good one) - hang out on entrepreneur communities like indiehackers.

Other ideas?

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

#206

Post by caviv »

Although I do think there are problems with no solution yet, I agree they are hard to find. I do think though that there are many problems with incomplete solutions. So even if it looks like there are others solving the problem don't be afraid to create your own solution which might be better.

We have started Make My Day https://www.makemydayapp.com as an app for scheduling tasks and drives and found ourselves in the Electric Vehicle market giving a different approach to a solution that was already excited - we believe we give a much holistic solution.

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

#207

Post by danhodgins »

jklepatch wrote: post #205
balls187 wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The secret is to go out and make friends who work in different industries that are totally unrelated to your experience. I'd slightly rephrase this: make friends who are business owners in different industries. Having a good idea is only the first step. You need to be able to market it, and ultimately sell it. Business owners face business problems, will have an idea on how much they're willing to spend on it, and…

“I would slightly rephrase this: make friends who are business owners in different industries.” I find it difficult to put in place a process to consistently meet business owners. Some ideas: - going to meetups or better organizing one - going to conferences or better give a talk - be part of mastermind groups (but dont know where to find good one) - hang out on entrepreneur communities like indiehackers. Other ideas…

Go to tradeshows or conventions. They are the biggest concentration of business owners anywhere.

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

#208

Post by MacroChip »

jakobegger wrote: post #112

Here 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…

For 1, are you suggesting something like a GUI for a list of data transformation recipes? I.e. specify an input format and an output format and press play? How would these recipes be created?

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

#209

Post by jakobegger »

MacroChip wrote: post #208
jakobegger wrote: post #112

Here 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…

For 1, are you suggesting something like a GUI for a list of data transformation recipes? I.e. specify an input format and an output format and press play? How would these recipes be created?

Yes, that's kind of what I have in mind.

I'm not sure how the GUI for creating recipes would work. It would probably need to be pretty complex.

I have an idea in my mind where you arange premade blocks on a canvas and connect them with pipes (a patch based UI like Quartz Composer), but I doubt that this would really be the best way to do it.

There's also tasks that are one-off (eg. migrate data from one system to another) and things that need to happen regularly or even continuously.

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

#210

Post by MacroChip »

jakobegger wrote: post #209
MacroChip wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For 1, are you suggesting something like a GUI for a list of data transformation recipes? I.e. specify an input format and an output format and press play? How would these recipes be created?

Yes, that's kind of what I have in mind. I'm not sure how the GUI for creating recipes would work. It would probably need to be pretty complex. I have an idea in my mind where you arange premade blocks on a canvas and connect them with pipes (a patch based UI like Quartz Composer), but I doubt that this would really be the best way to do it. There's also tasks that are one-off (eg. migrate data from one system to ano…

Just saw this on Product Hunt. https://www.actiondesk.io
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