Ask IH: How to start when you see that each idea that you have is on the market?

I'll talk less about validating market need here, and more about the fact that you're coming up with ideas that others have already done. That means that you're coming up with good ideas, which is great!

The problem is that they're obviously good ideas. You're likely exploring a large space of ideas but only digging a little bit below the surface for each one. Anything that shallow will be easy for others to discover. You need to dig deeper to reach the non-obvious good ideas. Spend less time considering a wide breadth of ideas, narrow your focus, go deep on just one or two ideas at a time. See if you can uncover some hidden gold that way.

How do you do that? (I just responded to someone else about this exact same thing, so I'll copy-paste here.) Inject some creativity into your brainstorming process! Add constraints. Ask yourself some questions, answer them, then allow yourself to ask more questions. For example, given one of your ideas:

• What would your idea look like if you prioritized making it really fun to use?

• What would your idea look like if it somehow had to make money for your users?

• How would your idea have to change if you wanted businesses to pay you a $5,000/year subscription?

• You're an entrepreneur. What changes could you make to make other entrepreneurs the target market for your idea?

• What if your product had to be a command line tool?

• What's your favorite business strategy/story? Can you squeeze and distort your idea to fit into the same shape?

• If your idea is technical, can you make it easy and appealing to people who aren't technical?

• Assume you were in your competitor's position. What are some interesting things you might want to build?

• What are some things your competitors can't build because their current product, trajectory limits, funding level, culture, etc. limits their options?

• etc.

The point isn't that you should actually do all of these things, or any of them. Rather, it's that merely by asking random questions like this, you'll think more creatively about solutions that aren't obvious or surface-level. Write down as many as you can. Let your mind wander.

In the end, you'll come up with ideas that your competitors aren't already working on. Then you can evaluate to see if any of those are any good.

"Live in the future and build what seems interesting".

I just love this quote I found in one of Paul Graham's essays. I suggest you go ahead and read it. It will surely change your perspective on how to approach startup ideas. Here is the link - http://www.paulgraham.com/startupideas.html

In short, Paul mentions that you should not think of ideas. Instead spend your time in something that is interesting to you (Its advantageous if you want to spend your time in something that is just shaping up. For example - Blockchain, AR/VR, Crypto, AI etc). You don't have to be an expert. You just have to be a power user. Now you have forced yourself to go live in the future. Now you will start seeing gaps and interesting opportunities. Just start talking to users and see if they see gaps too. Just start providing solutions to these problem(s).

The last thing you should do is to think if this idea is going to be big. Many will fail. But it's important for you to keep shipping products to real world and get feeback and maybe some money too. You will slowly start seeing that one of the products is turning into something valuable.

Do ping me if you need any help in brainstorming on what you need to do. Would love to chat and learn.

I'm gonna try to answer your question with a question:

How would you know if a market was big enough, even if there was theoretically no competition?

This line of thinking usually ends up leading towards the "well if we just capture 1% of the market we can make a bazillion dollars" but completely skips over the question of how many sales do you need to make in order to be successful?

If you haven't answered that question, it's super easy to psych yourself out and spend all of your energy worrying about the wrong things. The are hundreds (thousands?) of other things that are more likely to kill your business than the competition, market saturation, etc.

The most common killer is actually what you're already experiencing: doing nothing. Which, in a way, is choosing to fail.

So....how much do you need to earn in order to be successful?

Not in general - YOU. How much do YOU need to not worry about paying your bills, saving for a house, sending kids to school, whatever your situation.

Even if your goal is to grow the business to employ lots of people, you need to be able to create a sustainable job for yourself. So let's start there.

For the sake of round numbers, lets say you want to make $10,000/month. How can you reverse engineer that number into achievable goals?

Just one example.

Lets say your product is $59. Not even a $59/month SaaS...just a $59 one time charge. That means you need to make 170 sales every month to reach your goal. Raise the price to $79 and it's just 127 sales.

Now you have a new set of questions that you can answer without worrying about what other people do:

Are you capable of creating something worth $59? Almost certainly yes! If you're selling to businesses or professionals (who tend to buy things that save them time/effort) all you need to do is save them 1-2 hours of time for a product to be "worth it"

How can you reach enough people every month to generate 130-170 sales? If you don't have an audience of your own, now's the time to start before you invest any more time figuring out what things to build. You can't know what people will buy if you don't know who you're creating for....so don't wait to figure that out.

Naturally, there's a curve you're playing with where higher-priced products require fewer sales to make the same goal...until you reach a point where it's harder to make a sale and starts to look more like productized services or consulting.

If you start from these numbers, it's much easier to avoid the traps of uncertainty and focus on things you can actually control. :)

Remember, Coke existed before Pepsi, so the fact that someone else is in the marketplace does not mean there is no growth to be had for a new player. Evaluate what it is you offer that differentiates. Is it something that would make YOU choose your product over the competitors? IMO, successful entrepreneurs fix a problem that they’ve either observed or experienced... a “need”. Or they hit upon a fad idea that rises then falls….a “want”.

Good luck on your journey.

I have many competitors but I found a feature that most of them are very bad at and which is also required for a smaller segment of the market. I made that feature the main thing in my product and went after the niche market that needs that feature badly. The segment seems to be much bigger than I anticipated.

Execution is the variable.

If you believe in yourself, go after it.

I think it's always a challenge to "find" a niche idea unless you are already part of the super user group for that idea. Niche ideas aren't obvious to most people. However, there are always these "lightbulb" moments you have when an inspiration hits and you get all excited about an idea. Now, for most people the next step is to start googling to see if the solution already exists in the market. If it exists, does that mean the market is already saturated? If it doesn't, does that mean there's no market for it (or it should already have existed by now)?

I think it's hard to come to a conclusion without digging further. However, one issue I have seen again and again is the nature of the market itself. Some markets are much harder to penetrate without specialized skills/knowledge or significant capital. If the idea is in one of those markets, then it's going to a challenge for a new product. Other markets are huge, constantly evolving and always open to a better product (e.g. design tools, developer tools, analytic solutions etc.). If the idea exists in that market, then it's more valuable to analyze the unique angle your product has.

hi matt,

I genuinely believe that an idea that already has a number of products in the market is healthier than those who do not. It also means that you are less likely to "fabricate" a solution of non-existent problem.

As you already know, "focusing on a niche" is the way to go in this kind of market. To find such thing, there is a common rule of thumbs I have seen in lots of books and articles:

If There is a forum (or even better, subforum) for the potential market, then you may found a niche for it.

Indiehacker is actually a very good example of niche market. It consists of people who want to create product that can grow to be a sustainable business (instead of going the VC route).

You can also try to go deeper in niche so that you can get a piece of a market. In the case of Indiehacker, you may segment users into two distinct categories like 'Technical' and 'Non-technical'. If you are selling a developer tools, then the non-technical users of Indiehackers should not be your target niche.

But again, it is always easier said than done ^_^. Cheers!

I think the best way to decide whether to create a product based on an idea is to reach out to the target audience you'd expect using it. Ask plenty of questions - if there is competition then ask them what they think about it, whether there is any flaw or what are their favourite features. If there is no competition you'd need to either find a lot of potential users or alternatively try putting yourself in their shoes (which doesn't tend to be easy, better to ask someone else to take the role) and think about what do you need, expect or want from the product.

Niches are hard to find indeed, I would say that it is quite pointless to go looking for one - you simply stumble upon it, oftentimes. I would say the most important part to keep in mind is whether anyone will actually use the product. I can talk from my own experience, for instance, when I made https://exposure.cards and only after the launch I realized my website didn't appeal to anyone in particular, only to myself, and I should have asked around what people would have wanted instead of going for my own personal preferences. I believe that there is no secret really, it's all about being communicative and not isolating yourself :)

Probably a bigger issue is when you have an idea that's not yet in the market.

Apple didn't invent computers. They did invent the personal computer for everyone by assembling products that already existed.

Nike didn't invent shoes.

Amazon didn't invent books.

Hey Matt,

When an idea is on the market it means that the idea has already been validated.

It's a good chance for you to go forth and speak to people using those products to gain insight. Good way to develop out is to build from customer feedback. Partner with an existing player and build their solution.

When an idea already exists as a business, it's likely that person has already found some pitfalls.

Create the MVP, the basic solution. Find a partner. Tailor it to them. Do this for 3 companies. Then launch. Summarize the market competitors and fill their feature gaps.

You will have a great product that will speak for itself. And 3 very happy companies to speak for you.

In most cases, it's a 10X improvement required to switch product, best to keep that in mind.

Before you start disqualifying the ideas you have you need to define what success looks like.

Success might be: Reccuring monthly income, Quitting your job, $1,000,000 annual revenue potential, or just enough MRR to pay your mortgage.

Once you define success you can ask yourself: "Considering the state of the market, can I achieve success with this idea?"

There are very few markets that are so completly locked up that a new player can't find 15 $100/month subscribers in.

What do you want to accomplish?

I think a lot of discussions around "how to find ideas" and validate them get lost in the weeds because there's been an influx of literature on the subject in the last few years (decades?).

In my experience, there's a much easier path than through the usual customer development framework, and that's present in the vision of many successful businesses. Here are notes/quotations I wrote down about that.

From Jeff Bezos

“I very frequently get the question,” Bezos has famously noted, “‘What’s going to change in the next 10 years?’ I almost never get the question: ‘What’s not going to change in the next 10 years?’ And I submit to you that that second question is actually the more important of the two.’”

From Ev Williams

"Here’s the formula if you want to build a billion-dollar internet company. Take a human desire, preferably one that has been around for a really long time. Identify that desire and use modern technology to take out steps."

In short, study what people really want, and build on that.

I'm working on a much more in-depth series/book about that topic so stay tuned! :)

From whatever little I've read, there are 2 contrasting views that I've gathered:

1.) Build a 'better' version of a product when there are alternatives already existing in the market, by identifying a consumer pain point.

Eg: Google was a simpler and better search engine than its predecessors. The idea was not novel but the way it was presented was definitely new.

2.) Innovation lies in going from zero to one not 1 to 'n' - Peter Thiel in 'Zero to One'

"If somebody creates a successful carbonated drink, the next best idea is to make straws."

These are 2 views and IMO, it depends on an entrepreneur and his/her belief, mission and determination, which path one chooses.