How do I expose myself to new problems to solve?
How do I expose myself to new problems to solve? I have no itches to scratch for myself besides some harder-to-develop products that wouldn't be digital. My network is small, and I don't fluently speak the local language. Most people I meet with problems to solve expect free work. What do?
Why do the problems have to be new? That's playing on hard mode.
I recommend picking an existing problem, ideally one that customers have already proven they're willing to pay lots of money to have solved (so you don't have to validate the market), and one that's not in a winner-take-all space (for obvious reasons). Some random examples: learning to code, marketing your product online, hiring programmers, building websites, etc.
What needs to be new is not the problem, but your solution to the problem. Make sure to differentiate it from the existing solutions. Otherwise it'll be hard to get people to care and even harder to get them to switch. Ideally, make it superior to existing solutions. The easiest way to do that is to pick some under-served subset of the target market, aka a niche, and build something especially for them.
First time I am hearing about "Winner-take-all"
Just curious, is applicant tracking system a winner take all?
What do you think about my product?
Do you think I am on the right track?
You're asking, "Do I have a winner-take-all product/solution?" which doesn't really make sense. What you should be asking is, "Am I in a winner-take-all market?" or "Am I solving a winner-take-all problem?"
If the problem you're trying to solve is helping companies hire, then great, that's certainly not winner-take-all. Even if you narrow it down to helping companies hire developers, I can name a dozen companies that are making money hand over first, not to mention hundreds of job boards and recruiting agencies. There will never be one perfect solution that makes all the others obsolete.
By contrast, a winner-take-all market would be something where the nature of the problem means that people only want the best (e.g. search engines, social networks), or where competing is so expensive that the best companies have an overwhelming advantage (e.g. smart phones, browsers). Usually it's some combination of the two. Avoid those areas, unless you have tons of money or some genius strategy to break in.
I don't know much about applicant tracking systems, unfortunately. I think your site is beautiful and well-designed, but looking at the marketing copy, I'm not sure how this differs from any other applicant tracking system. You're solving an existing problem, great, but ideally you want to build a unique solution.
For example, my friend Lynne Tye started Key Values two years ago, she's a one-woman company, and she's approaching $200k ARR. Her solution to helping companies hire is extremely unique, yet effective.
It helps to pick a niche. Pick some subset of the market, and tailor your solution to work well for their specific problems.
Well, new to me! I'm sure there are many sub-par solutions being offered to problems I don't know exist.
What I mean is: There are many problems that you do know exist and that already have great solutions being offered, and yet there is still room for new entrants, because these problems aren't in winner-take-all markets.
Fair enough, perhaps it's the "greener grass" syndrome.
My favorite example is always teaching. There is always a new way to teach something that is better, for some subset of people, than other ways of teaching it. And usually people will pay to learn, depending on the subject and how they envision learning it will improve their lives.
This is excellent advice.
Particularly the bit about choosing a subset or niche of the market.
That way, you don't have to be the best X in the market, you just have to be the best X for eg hairdressers/Democrats/visually impaired people.
Small tip: It's a lot easier to motivate yourself to keep working on your product if you have a natural interest for your chosen niche/subset. Being able to identify and empathise with your customers is important.
I don't think I've heard of anyone proposing this before, but I was in a similar situation about a week ago and I now have a small list of business ideas.
I chose a market, specifically one that I wanted to learn more about and excited me (the board game industry).
Then, I spent about 30 hours learning all I could about it. I downloaded board game industry podcasts, read board game industry blogs, and explored board game industry websites.
My objective was to get a sense of the market. Who are the different players in the industry (publisher, distributor, designer, etc, etc)? What major problems do they have? Does software already exist to solve those problems?
I compiled all the information into an AirTable base, distilled it into a number of viable business opportunities (typically software or websites with monetization), and then used Keywords Everywhere to see if people were actively searching for solutions to their problems.
I ended up with a list of 4 ideas that seem viable.
I can't totally vouch for it because I haven't built any of these ideas yet, but it certainly got me past the idea phase.
Maybe you can share your efforts and results for different industries if you're pursuing all of those ideas.
Ya, I'm planning on it. :) I'm starting to blog regularly on ZakMiller.com about what I'm up to, and that's my next planned post.
What's the local language where you live and what language do you speak fluently?
Local language is Norwegian, I'm fluent in Portuguese and English(and intermediate in German).
Live differently.
By living differently, you align yourself with new niche groups who may be experiencing problems you can solve.
For example, when I traded my smartphone for a dumbphone, I became a member of many new communities who were experiencing issues that I realized I could fix.
Interesting, what kind of issues?
I am in the same place. I have been trying to figure out what to take on for 4 months now. Let me know if you crack this nut
Wanna team up? I feel that thinking in isolation isn't very effective.
It seems we are not alone (:
Maybe we can go meta and create a platform to share problems that need a solution or tools / techniques / competences that need problems
include me in as well :-)
in
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