Where do you find ideas? How should I go about finding ideas for software to make? • Hacker News Board

Re: Where do you find ideas? How should I go about finding ideas for software to make?

#11

Post by Kaizyn » Sat, Nov 03, 2007, 8:57 AM UTC

michele wrote: post #4

I'd recommend to build something YOU need: it's always the best way to make sure you're building something useful.

Building for a target market of one is a bit too narrow in many cases to be a good idea for something you hope to sell to a wider audience.

Re: Where do you find ideas? How should I go about finding ideas for software to make?

#12

Post by Kaizyn » Sat, Nov 03, 2007, 9:04 AM UTC

You find ideas in one of several ways: 1) you bricolage them together from reading a lot in a wide range of topics or 2) you think long and hard about a single problem you want to solve. In the former, you come up with something interesting and new because it's an unexpected and novel recombination of ideas normally not found in the same place (cross-discipline). For the latter, you will cover a large and interesting search space where you hopefully find a number of interesting ideas that each taken by itself gives you just a small part of the solution.

Re: Where do you find ideas? How should I go about finding ideas for software to make?

#13

Post by staunch » Sat, Nov 03, 2007, 11:32 AM UTC

Every time you find yourself/someone else disappointed with something, or unable to do something, instead of thinking "That's just how things are I suppose" ask yourself "Could I fix this situation if I really tried?"

Write the ideas down. Look over your list. Pick the one that seems the most interesting AND has the best (clearest/easiest) method of distribution.

Re: Where do you find ideas? How should I go about finding ideas for software to make?

#14

Post by maurycy » Sat, Nov 03, 2007, 12:01 PM UTC

Analyse existing systems. Divide them into subideas, and mash up them.

For instance, Gmail is a MUA with good spam filter, keeping e-mails in threads. So, why not create a blog reader that keeps discussions between bloggers in threads, making it easy to follow?

Re: Where do you find ideas? How should I go about finding ideas for software to make?

#15

Post by pumper » Wed, Nov 07, 2007, 10:38 PM UTC

cstejerean wrote: post #7

Well, I have a couple of ideas I would like to see implemented and little time to work on all of them. I'm not promising they're great ideas but it's software that I would use if it were available. If you're interested send me an email.

I was in your position about a year ago and wrote a post about possible idea sources. You might find it useful

http://www.pumperknickel.com/?p=7