Build only when you have unfair competitive advantage with finding customers for your service.
no one would build anything by this logic
Except people who have an unfair competitive advantage with finding customers for their service.
Ask HN: Recently laid off developer looking for solo product ideas
11–19 of 19 posts
Re: Ask HN: Recently laid off developer looking for solo product ideas
#12Lately I've talked to so many people who are in a similar situation. Whether laid off or feeling stuck in the 9-5 grind, seasoned operators seem disillusioned with traditional employment in our industry.
I've heard this so often that I'm starting an incubator to bring these folks together to buy, operate, and grow existing profitable software businesses. No need to fumble around validating ideas or finding the first few customers, just focus on building and growing.
It's very early days, but I've put together a few thoughts[0] and am collecting feedback on the concept. Please feel free to reach out, my contact info is in my profile.
[0] https://www.notion.so/notventurescale/Wild-Built-Incubator-2...
Re: Ask HN: Recently laid off developer looking for solo product ideas
#13The method I've been going with recently is to just clone an existing app. I was inspired by max rozen blogging about building the '200th uptime checker'.
https://maxrozen.com/#bootstrapping-onlineornot
I've made a pdf bankstatement to csv app and now working on a session recording app.
The bank statement tool hovered around break even, but ultimately I shut it down since I hit a point where I was just grinding out integrations with different pdf bank statements, which got old, and had no end in sight.
Re: Ask HN: Recently laid off developer looking for solo product ideas
#14How about a dating app for unattractive people? AI could block attractive people from registering.
genius
Re: Ask HN: Recently laid off developer looking for solo product ideas
#15what's your hobby in your office hours ?
Re: Ask HN: Recently laid off developer looking for solo product ideas
#16Join a hackathon that is focused on tech-for-good. For example, this one: https://www.fundingthecommons.io/hackathons
Firstly, mentors and advisors will help shape your idea into something that meets real-world needs. And then, if you decide, you could go through their Residency to turn it into an ecosystem-weaved project.
If you want something real quick... Just help an open-source project.
In general, your challenge comes down to two questions: 1. How big an impact do you want to make? What is more important - impact or time spent? 2. Are you looking to build a product or a tool? Products require more time. Tools you can build faster, but still would need to maintain if you want it to be helpful.
Re: Ask HN: Recently laid off developer looking for solo product ideas
#17Talk to people outside tech. Lots of small problems worth solving, but not in tech. Also, just because it's a problem in someone's day to day won't mean they'll pay to fix it. Good luck!
"just because it's a problem in someone's day to day won't mean they'll pay to fix it." The best way to measure is that they've hacked a solution themselves using inferior tools. This is where the 10x recommendation comes to mind - you can do it cheaper, faster, better.
Well, if they have hacked a working solution that is supposedly free, why would they pay for another one?
Re: Ask HN: Recently laid off developer looking for solo product ideas
#18this site has many Micro SAAS ideas... could find some inspiration...
Re: Ask HN: Recently laid off developer looking for solo product ideas
#19I have way more ideas than I have time to build. Maybe we should talk. What is your preferred stack?
I'd be interested to take you up on this offer. I'm in a similar boat to the OP and looking for things to build for more experience and as a hobby. My preferred tech stack is Typescript/React (or any framework)/PostgreSQL or anything in that area. Really anything on the web or React Native on mobile.