Ask IH: What do you do to generate ideas?

My ideas pretty much come from 3 sources.

1. Improvements of existing tools that I use.

For example, there's a command-line git interface called tig (https://github.com/jonas/tig). It has over 4 thousand stars on GitHub which clearly indicates that there's demand for such a tool.

I believe if you wrote a similar tool but as a native GUI (for mac or windows), you would get users and maybe even be able to sell it for $29 or so.

1. Tools that I wish existed.

For example I often have to ssh to a linux server and diagnose issues so I run htop, tcpdump etc.

Command-line interfaces are bad so I believe it could be done much better by having the display of information running locally, as a native app (i.e. on mac or windows) using data coming from linux server from an agent running on the linux server.

I believe you could charge for such a tool.

1. Tools that exists on one platform but not other.

For example there's a tool called xScope on Mac. I don't believe there is a Windows version. Write Windows version.

I don't know what kind of work you do, but I come upon such frustrations and missing tools in my programming job almost daily. It's just a matter of noticing that an improvement is possible or thinking about tools that could do something that currently is not possible.

One thing I have in mind is going through job markets / freelance sites and look for what people are asking for. Also what I'm going to look into is a site like Amazon Mechanical Turk where they pay people pennies for jobs that could very well be automated.

I too am a guy who can build things but have no idea what to build. Where is my passion, I don't know.

Mhh... My process to limit ideas down to the one which actually make Sense can also bei used to come up with ideas.

But first, I think it is important to know: what intrigues you about the idea of your own product? What is your expectation what you would do day to das once you HAVE it?

Idea Approach angles:

CUSTOMERS: who are people you like in general? Like talking to, hanging out with, having similar Interests? Do you feel comftable solving a problem for them and requesting money for it? What do they hate but need to do often? You can lurk and ask in online communities too... make sure its a big problem with lots of time and money already spent on it.

MARKET: What is a market you know well, or you know somebody who is knowledable within a certain Market? Talk to Friends, Family, etc. Can you think of a way to get in contact with 10 people from this market within this week?

TOPIC: what is a niche topic you are Interested in? Like fly fishing, hiking, stamp collection, human rights, futurism, home automation or religion

TECHNOLOGY: What inspiring technology does exist or will exist in a few Years, how will the world and daily lifes Change if the Tech is here. Like AI , autonomous transportation, food2home delivery, prostetics for disabled, augmented human organs, lab grown 3d printed food, automated agriculture

SOCIAL CHANGES: how will your society look in 5-10-20 years? Think about the outcome scenarios of political stuff, climate zone changes, water shortage, rising sea levels, relocation of cities, increased Population in cities, usage of technology, Innovation speed, generation clashes due to technology and data usage, ...

YOUR IDEAL WORK DAY: how would your ideal day Look Like? What kind of product can help you achieve that? Software needs to be sold too! An ebook needs to be marketed over a long time too. A Software does not get better by adding features constantly. If you are going solo , actual coding might not be more than 20% of your time!

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What to ask customers:

• what do you hate doing?
• what Takes the most time of your day?
• what are activities which accelerate your business or what could accelerate it?
• where do you spend a lot of Money?
• where do you spend Money but are not satisfied with the result?

I hope I could help you get some Inspiration.
Patric

When in doubt, take the first thing which comes to your mind and spend 2 !! Weekends working / preselling on it... Launch it after weekend 2. If you are still motivated in week 3 - continue. ;-)

if you work for a big corporation, you can try to chat with people from different departments see what they are complaining about.

Or if you found some tedious things your team deal with daily, but no one willing to solve, for example, I created a Slack command to solve a problem we are facing.

Final advise, stay foolish, stay hungry. :-D