Ask IH: How do you find an idea to pursue?
I am working in one of those big tech companies as a PM. I would like to start a side hustle to take my mind away from work, make some money now, more later, and get back into coding a bit more. For now I am planning to do everything on my own until I can validate the idea is any good.
However, it is getting very hard for me to find an idea to go after. Idea generation has slowed down since I have been in this big co for a while now. Where do you get your inspiration? What are your muses?
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I can highly recommend David's site!
My small blog might be helpful too problemoftheday.co 😋
Thanks my man :)
The ineffective way I do it is to make a list of stuff I want to build when an idea comes up, then eventually just start building an idea that I really want to see.
I think the better way would be to find areas like hobbies or industries you're interested in (or at least wouldn't mind working on projects in), determine which ones seem like good markets (how much people in the area spend, how competitive it is, etc), then join communities to read about the problems people experience, try to help them when you can, and then build a product based on the information you find.
I think the second is better because we tend to construct narratives in our head that don't match reality, and joining actual communities can help you see repetitive issues that can be solved.
Don't focus on finding an idea. Try to find a problem. The more specific the problem, the better. Problems and in-efficiencies exist in every industry. For validation, talk to people who experience a problem, offer a potential solution. Once you find a valuable solution to a specific problem set about automating it with software. Your "Idea" is a solution to a problem.
You can break this process down into specific steps:
read Ux strategy its an o reilly book
The people / process you encounter at work could be a source of inspiration. For example, I've chatted with Ev from Gravitational, and I think he got the idea by observing problems his workplace's customers have.
Where are you located? I'm trying to come up with interesting ideas to work on too. Feel free to drop me an email.
@JumpInWhat, I offer a coaching cum content offering through this course - http://climb-lean.com/courses/get-awesome-startup-idea-in-one-week, to exactly address to this situation. Feel free to explore or ask questions if you have any.
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Interesting site! Would be nice if you could publish youtube playlists of a week's rankings so we can play it in the background.