Ask IH: Before writing single line of code, asking your thoughts on my idea.

First off, good job doing at least some form of research before jumping into the code. I know that's very difficult for most developers to do. 👍

My top concern is — how do you make money? You'll have loads of competition in the personal productivity space. Most apps here are free, too, so you can't charge much, so you'll need to make it up in volume. In other words, you'll need to convince large numbers of people to care about your app, which by your own admission is not that valuable (according to the low price you'll end up setting). That's a tough spot to be in.

If I were you, I'd want the opposite challenge: convincing a small number of people to care about something extremely valuable. To do that, try identifying a more valuable problem, as evidenced by the fact that people (usually businesses) are already spending lots of money to solve it. The example I always give is hiring. Businesses spend hundreds of millions of dollars hiring, but it's far from a solved problem. There are, of course, many other areas where this is also the case.

All that said, I'm sure there's some novel way to make this work. Maybe you get some celebrity to use the app by paying them on a per-fan basis, and you charge fans a monthly fee. You'd have to find a way to convince the celebrity to dutifully report in, of course. And you'd have to give fans some sort of unique value they can't get anywhere else, otherwise they won't pay. I could see it morphing into something that's not exactly a productivity app.

It's fun to think about, but… I wouldn't work on this personally if my goal was to generate revenue and reach some sort of financial freedom as an indie hacker.

Interesting, but becomes a but stalkery with the idols.

How about something similar with your peers? Stay motivated with each other by logging pertinent routine details and check in. — An issue here is becoming a typical social network where ppl conceal true aspects of there day & lie about routines.

I'll expand. What your "idol" is doing today, isn't what got them there in the first place.
It's the same thing with startups, if you copy what XYZ unicorn is doing today, you'll fail bc that isn't the strategy that led them to where they are today.
Uber started as "baller on a budget" with black car service only. Now its a logistics company...
It's not about the destination, it's the road that led you there and it starts with hard work.

No man.

My idol has servants in home and employees who works for him. So he don't waste time like doing laundry or cooking his meal.

I'm a guy, who has those constraints.

BTW Productivity is a way to measure efficiency of someone's work input and result of the output desired.

If you really want to increase someone's productivity, make an app to stop wasting time

I agree with what most are saying here.

Instead of literally tracking them, why not try to interview them and add support for each maker/idol. You can have a freemium service here, a few free idols/makers and then monthly or unlocks for others. You don't need to actually track them every day, just get their routine.

No. Mimicry isn't productive....

Cool, but how do you get the data? Like I'm thinking: how do you get Elon Musk to tell you when he wakes up or what he does?
Moreover be careful about timezones :D

Honestly - No I wouldn't. When I'm productive I don't have time to context switch by opening an app and entering what I've done today, even if it is the smoothest ux. I believe the idea is fundamentally flawed

Is this about productivity or something more grand, like being very successful, or maybe both?

Can you replicate someone's success by replicating their behavior?

What does idol mean in this context? Are you talking about modeling real life people like Elon Musk?

Modeling behavior at the right level seems very important for this idea to work. In extension, I expect a thesis that can serve as a foundation for all your behavior modeling.

Instead of coding right now, I would suggest looking more into gamification and solutions that try to gamify productivity, like Habitica.

I'm strongly against idolization because it's sickening. But...

It'd probably get followers. People are sick. Some enjoy being sick. The more they can feed their addiction, the happier they feel. So y'know... Just make sure you're aware of (and take responsibility for) what type of behavior you're feeding.

Can you find out when Bill Gates wakes up and eats,? If you can, who would not want to use your app

I'm huge fan of thinking that you must do things differently (and/or better) than Average Joe. However, I'm not sure would I use app like this. Maybe because I don't really have many idols.

On the other hand if the service would have many daily routines of famous and successful ppl and users could upvote those routines. Then app user could go through most liked daily routines and choose one of them to try out. If she doesn't like it she could change it to other routine later and give her ratings for the routine.

No one would have imagined people would know what a celebrity was eating for lunch but here we are with Instagram and Twitter.

Your idea sounds wacky to me but I’m also someone who’d have dismissed all of this century’s social media inventions and slept soundly the next day.

Build it, market it. Let the world decide if they want your idea.

It’ll be hard to build a group of interesting idols who’d want their life tracked at the level of detail you’re suggesting.

Hello...I do agree with many of the points that some of the community has made...However...I must say...there is something there...I liked it but it does need a little more and no I don't want to hear from my peers..I want to see and hear how the celebs did it...and Courtland is right..how do you make money >..?

1 ) What is your definition of IDOL...users have many idols in various segments....but a fashion icon is very different from a diet guru and the user takes different things from each one .
2 ) Monetization - you could make some money with this concept
however..your product differentiation has to be unique in 2 different directions...1 You must attract users with something different and 2 Advertisers or innovative monetization methods .

So I thought about your concept and here is what I came up with after a few minutes thought ….1st...the site name..has to be unique and unforgettable..and easily relayed by word of mouth..
.people gravitate to celebrities because they have a combination of luck , skill..and that special sauce..and visit your site because they need help in creating their own personal special sauce recipe ...basically ..they need help..
When you need help..what do you do ?...you send an S.O.S..Which is the name of the site...but with a twist...S.O.S stands for

Search engine Of Success
( Damn I should trademark that one ! )

Now before you start saying no..let me tell you why you should say yes...because everything is a search engine ...Amazon..Craigslist
eBay ,WebMD, TripAdvisor , Shopify , iTunes and so on

The Search engine of Success would use this script
https://codepen.io/unmeshpro/pen/orhKk

Which is an open source script from codepen...just give the user credit for their work on your site .The speed of the location pins can be adjusted in the JS section of the code editor .
Instead of location pins... thumbnails of celebs would be used... the users would search their fave celebs using the search engine...once they find an interesting celeb...they click on the thumbnail which takes them to a video library of that celebrity saying motivational things...users could search in different categories …Music , Fashion , Money , Business etc using this script
( this is just the UI , the search component needs to be added )
https://codepen.io/brianhaferkamp/pen/ELrrrG

Using this method allows you to take advantage of 2 things

1. users would rather " see" their idols in the flesh talking about the KEYS to success than simply reading text..
   (if your really good ..you could devise a way to contact celebs and get them to upload inspirational videos specifically for your user audience )
2. It allows you to sell products and services to your users much as YouTube does ...your advertising structure could be tied into a users search to target goods and services to increase clicks and sales

Areas of monetization include...Diet , fashion , Business , real estate
health , nutrition , exercise , organizational science , meetups ,
success psychology and more .

I would also like to add that a page with Tshirts of users favorite celebs success quotes should be also created as an added means of monetization...you could create an alliance with a t shirt company for a cut of every t shirt ordered from your site ….so you never have to touch a shirt...just have them sent to your customers.

Those are just a few of my ideas..

If anyone is looking for a creative co founder with years of product development and design experience...I can be reached at
CeoSpaceWeb@gmail.com

This comment was deleted 4 years ago

This comment was deleted 8 years ago