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Ask IH: why no website can gather problems posted by people from other areas?

After I told to people who is small restaurant owner, VP of famous brand and nurse of hospital, I found that they are all looking for some sort of software to solve their own problems. But still the solution providers (us) still have to crush our head to cold email/call to let these solution consumers know us first. Does this sound right to you? I wonder why there is no a platform to connect there two group of people? Any obstacle?

I know this sounds really ambitious, but I still think that it just matter of timing.

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    Not sure I fully understand your idea here but can't this just be boiled down to general communication problems? Either 'we, who can create solutions' reach 'them, who have the problems', or they come to us?

    Or are you just saying there should be some kind of platform where people stated their needs, and people could answer them or create the solution for them? (cus this already exists in many forms... it is just hard to have a universal solution that reaches everyone)

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      Hey mezod,

      A platform is more like what I am asking. Image it as a shopping mall, in which small businesses 1, freelancers 3 and indie hackers can easily and causually connect to each other.

      I agreed, there already have some communication forms to let people connected to create solutions, for example, consulting company and some mind-liked forum, but, I don't think they are really effeciency enough for the current software (internet)-eat-everything age.

      I found that some successful indie hackers' (Dane Maxwell, Dave Schneider) in their blog and interview mentioned that, after you contact with people from other areas, they would like to tell you they have problem they think a software can solve. I wonder if this's a sign that there's a room for us to have a different platform or communication form?

      To be honest, I have no idea what the platform should look like, I just want to throw a disuccsion here to see if there something we can brainstorm. :-)

      Thanks for your feedback.

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    Tech is new, and people working in more traditional industries simply aren't all that familiar with using software to solve problems. However, I think this will improve over time as (a) tech continues to spread, (b) older people retire and are replaced by younger workers more familiar with tech, and (c) indie hackers like ourselves get better at identifying opportunities and reaching out.

    Will there ever be a platform? Maybe (I'd say doubtful), but there are some big challenges it would need to overcome:

    1. Retention/stickiness would be low, because usage would be infrequent. Coming up with unique problems your industry needs solved is not something people will do every day. That's like a once-a-year type thing.
    2. Satisfaction would be low, because there are such high turnaround times between requesting a problem be solved and having someone build a solution. There's no instant gratification.
    3. Competition with contracting sites. There's no shortage of non-programmers with app ideas, and most of them want to keep the profits for themselves, so they prefer hiring contractors to build them an app over giving the idea away for free.
    4. People tend to stick to niche sites. For a platform like this to work, it'd need ideas coming in from hundreds of industries, but how do you get doctors, lawyers, restaurateurs, teachers, policemen, etc all to the same site? Possible of course, but hard.
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      Hi Courtland,

      I think more important thing we can do is (c). What do you think that as I introduce myself to people from other area, we say: " hey, I am Steve, a software solution agency", rather than, say a software developer? :-D

      For the platform thing, I am trying a newsletter called Nugget (mentioned by @Find70), it is kind of what I am looking for, but missed some features. And, It lets me see so many possible ideas, which is really awesome.

      Thanks for your awesome feedbacks as always.

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    Because a lot people in those industries do not see how they can solve their problems using software

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      Exactly! I think our current startup community doesn't have a good education system like other industries to let people know if they need X then, go to Y to ask solution. For example, if a person want to buy an insurance for his/her car, he/she will talk to some agencies.

      I wonder what we can do to let people have this mindset that if they are dealing with a painful job, like, they keep repeat themselves, then they can talk to a software developer?

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    I thought I saw a product already that did something like this. It was called Nugget something and I saw it on ProductHunt. I can't remember exactly what it was called.

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    You're right that there's a lot of solution providers, and a lot of service industry folks that both have either demand or supply of software that can streamline business processes.

    The problem (and maybe the reason for the lack of existence) with marketplaces for this is that like any other, you're faced with the typical marketplace chicken-and-egg problem. So either people have attempted to tackle this and failed (and we never got wind of it because it didn't explode on PH, HN, or TechCrunch), or nobody has tried it yet.

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      As @Find70 mentions that seems someone has already hands on this idea https://nugget.one :-)