[Rate my idea] How would you build a new social media business focused on software?
I’ve been toying with the idea of creating a social media site focused around the software products you love using.
Similar idea to https://www.stacklist.com/ but is focused more around what people like to use, not the businesses.
Users could showcase the software products they love using on their profile page. You could follow people and get updates when they drop or add new products and you could discuss those products with each other on a wall. And if someone goes to subscribe/buy software via your profile then you could get a affiliate commission.
Would love to get some feedback/initial thoughts about the idea and how you’d go about building this while bootstrapping on the side.
I would suggest Courtland add something like that here, on IH - every project can be described in terms of the stack and then it will be very easy to see who else uses the same framework/tool/language and all the stats.
Hey, thanks so much for replying. Yeah I think someone did a similar theme around their projects expenses and people liked it. I feel these are around a similar theme.
Hi Ross! That's really cool that you want to launch something like this. I initially thought of any example I could share with you on how you may be able to bootstrap your MVP and I remember this article about how ProductHunt got started back in the day, if you haven't seen it I would check it out. http://ryanhoover.me/post/69599262875/product-hunt-began-as-an-email-list
Some things for you to think through that may help you.
1.) Is there existing user behavior like this? If so, where and how is it happenening (ie. over email, messenger?)
2.) If 1 is true then, what is a problem with how users achieve this through their current process.
I think it's really important to nail the problem you are trying to solve. If you have access to a group of people you can interview (aka talk to them about this) then I'd recommend really working to understand why folks may use a tool like this! Ask them about how they do this type of thing in the real world, maybe via conversation, when and why do they talk about these things? What's the goal of the conversation they have.. etc - hope these high level thoughts can provide some directional ideas!
Another product to check out is siftery.com who was recently acquired by G2 Crowd.
Good luck!!
Ah cool many thanks for your reply. I knew the back story to producthunt but didn’t realise Ryan had a tumblr.
It’s a good post and yes agreed I definitely need a quick and dirty way to test the idea. It would be too easy for me to spend my evenings building this with no idea if people would come.
Ah yes sifter I’ve come across them before and it feels like it’s another one based around the business first. Need to have a further look at them to see what’s working as clearly G2 saw something in them!