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I will be free for the next few weeks, and I want to build an MVP to a) gain some experience, b) have a cool project on my resume, and c) maybe make some money.
I know how to make a website, how to design, how to do marketing, how to do conversion optimization, etc. My only issue is... I don't know what to build. And I definitely don't want to build a useless product.
So my question is simple: any advice on how to find problems worth solving? Thanks!
A lot of people would like to have X feature, X website, X software. Would they pay for it? Ask that question. For what would you pay for right now?
For example: I am starting to selling goods. I'd like a place where I put all my good purchases from ebay, alliexpress or wherever, and I can track it, see when it will arrive, how much stock I have left, etc.
Just a thought - Good Luck!
2. Get in touch with owners/managers in your chosen area.
3. Take them to lunch and discuss their business. Watch their face and when they show you a pain point, try to pinpoint the cause.
4. You should discover more than a few problems they would spend money to have solved if you talk to enough of them.
5. Follow up with an email thanking them for their time and mention again how you have been giving some thought to a particular pain point. Try to find an article, software package, etc that attempts to solve their pain point and send them the link.
6. Build a true MVP (should be embarrassing, yet offer value to them), and follow-up with an email. Tell them you have been thinking more about their problem and wrote up a quick dirty app that might help them. Offer to demo it for them. While demoing discuss how much their pain costs their business.
7. Iterate based on their collective feedback.
8. Based on the discussion about pain costs, come up with a value-based price for your solution.
9. Refine your MVP, follow-up with another demo. Sell them a subscription to your solution. It may still be rough, but you should be able to demonstrate value and savings compared to their pain costs. CLOSE THE DEAL.
10. Follow-up
11. Iterate
12. Follow-up
13. Iterate
14. Follow-up
15. Iterate
16...Rinse... Repeat.
1. Pick a niche or industry you want to work with. 2. Get in touch with owners/managers in your chosen area. 3. Take them to lunch and discuss their business. Watch their face and when they show you a pain point, try to pinpoint the cause. 4. You should discover more than a few problems they would spend money to have solved if you talk to enough of them. 5. Follow up with an email thanking them for their time and men…
1. Pick a niche or industry you want to work with. 2. Get in touch with owners/managers in your chosen area. 3. Take them to lunch and discuss their business. Watch their face and when they show you a pain point, try to pinpoint the cause. 4. You should discover more than a few problems they would spend money to have solved if you talk to enough of them. 5. Follow up with an email thanking them for their time and men…
Thanks, that looks like a good way to find a profitable startup idea. But here I'm just looking for a small side project idea, and I'd like to find it quickly. So taking random people to lunch seems a bit overkill.
You learn far far more about an industry talking to someone immersed in it than any other way.
If you just want to spend the next few weeks coding, there are any number of github projects. If you want a side project - trust me, it will run and run for months if not years.
Get your linkedin page up, and find an admin at a local hospital, a CEO at a local charity. Take them to lunch.
go.