Finding problems to solve
Finding a problem to solve is arguably one of the biggest challenges that founders have to face.
I was thinking about making a platform where users can voice their problems, and then makers/businesses can either pitch their own existing solutions, or try to work on solving the problem.
What do you guys think?
** EDIT 1**: This post went mini viral. Thank you everyone for all the upvotes and comments. I was about to abandon this project, but hope has returned along with a clear plan.
I have narrowed down the problem to this: We all have too many ideas that we want to work on, how to find ones that can be scaled and monetized.
Here is the solution: Collect problems and solutions to these problems. Identify and point out gaps that are yet to be solved. Since users are already paying for almost all of these products, we know these ideas are valid and can be monetized. Furthermore, the gaps can provide inspiration to solve completely new problems.
I will try to incorporate a forum into the app, where users can voice their concerns, if there is enough demand. I just don't want it to devolve into a forum for memes.
I will build this in public on twitter. To follow along, follow me at https://twitter.com/hey_eflat
You could use this as inspiration or a point to jump off from as well
https://iwishtherewas.app/
Hahaha, watch out! This one is a rabbit hole!
Thank you for that, made me laugh
There's a way to do this for B2B segments.
Basically, you have to go to a competitor's product and find their reviews online (capterra/g2).
Get it all in one place and then find out the theme's for what they like and what they don't like.
Turn what they don't like into challenges, find inspiring examples for where it's been solved in other products and then incorporate it into your product.
When you launch, target based on the roles you saw for the reviewers on G2 or Capterra.
Hope this helps!
I signup for competitors all the time for all my product I've made Including https://rototer.com (failed GDPR compliance software shut down in August 2021), https://twayobiz.com (Also shut down), and https://obeatow.com.
What's your product?
Obeatow listed above is my current one.
Hi @Sewellstephens Obeatow looks fine. I think you should work a bit on the design. You can have someone who'll code you the same things in Tailwind CSS. That's pretty nice and you'll have a good-looking design.
Good luck!
I'm currently using Tailwind actually. You can't really tell, because I've changed a whole bunch so it looks less generic.
Can you tell me what I should change: https://app.ruttl.com/share/7dL44tRYPDDTvhqbJEsh?page=dGZJXiu2HHy9E0k1KU2s
Nice! How are you managing distribution right now?
I use Google Ads for promotion and as far as distribution, I have a post about that: https://www.indiehackers.com/post/the-way-i-build-saas-products-is-surprisingly-easy-but-may-not-be-the-best-7edefcb8ff?utm_campaign=forum-notification&utm_medium=email&utm_source=indie-hackers-emails
This is golden. Thank you so much.
Golden indeed.
I don't have this problem. I use twitter, reddit, and other platforms and you can tell generally what the problems are with the industry. People are very vocal about it and will give you feedback.
If you are having trouble then I think you don't read enough to understand it first then present the solution.
There is this Reddit search platform as well. It sort of summarizes messages identifying behavior patterns and find opportunities, problems to solve, solution requesta, etc. pretty good tool.
https://gummysearch.com/
Hey thanks for the mention! You rock!
This is good
This looks very promising
A great way to do this is simply not to search for them but to let others tell you them. Walk down the street, walk into businesses and offices and ask for some time to meet with the owner or one of the managers or team members and ask them about their work. Don't use leading questions, if they tell you about a problem, then capture that and repeat at a similar business until you have enough evidence to show that there is a legitimate problem in that particular industry worth solving.
Or, find a problem you have and try solve it!
It can be relatively easy to find problems to solve when you pay attention to your own daily challenges, and the challenges of those around you. You're bound to find problems in both your work and private space that you could solve.
What's more difficult, is figuring out which problems are big enough and painful enough for enough people that solving them would build a successful business.
Hi! I have tried to do something similar with ideazed.com - The idea (heh) was to list user ideas and then let others vote on what they find would be most beneficial. Alas, I haven't done much with it since I released it - a project like that needs constant user engagement.
But again, it was done in two days, so I haven't spent a lot of time building it. :)
I think that what you have posted can be beneficial and valuable. Just keep in mind that you need a (preferably, huge) audience for it.
I can't relate to this, my biggest challenge is choosing a single problem to solve from the vast amount of possible ideas I constantly have and persisting on solving that issue without getting distracted by a new one.
This is the exact problem I am trying to solve. We all have a lot of ideas, but it is just extremely difficult to gauge which one is big enough for people to start paying for it. In essence, it is hard to find scalable products that can be monetized.
I'd be in! Great idea.
I had many founders ask me the same question, so I summed up the methodology of coming up with amazing SaaS ideas - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UwcuzkAgHUs&t=1s
You made some very nice points in the video. I especially agree with the point that the best SaaS products are ones where founders have some personal experience.
What's hard is actually knowing whether your problem is big enough for people to pay for it. I want to make this process easier.
It's a good problem to solve if:
I love the Idea, I started a project like that in France. The first version was a "tinder" of Pitches. You Basically upload your Pitch and other member of the platform like or comment your idea.
Idea is good. Get started
I think I will soon
I think it is a great idea :)
I will say it this way "Finding problems (For which users are ready to pay) to solve".
Well of course the users should be willing to pay for them. There is no point in making a product that isn't profitable (assuming your goal is to make money, which is the case for most businesses)
But there are cases where there really is a problem. And the solution is something users love it but not enough love to pay for that. My recent product ( TinyFunction.com ) got huge attention/love from devs but not much in payments.
I like the idea, it is very cool. But as a developer, I can't think of many use cases for it.
Maybe this is the reason that it hasn't generated much in payments. Also, try increasing the price. It may sound counterintuitive, but people value higher priced items more than lower priced ones.
And that is why I'm trying to curate ideas that users are willing to pay for.
I will think about the pricing part, Thank you.
Thats nice.
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I like the idea of a platform that helps solve problems.
I feel like I'm in a different boat though (for better or worse, I have too many problems to solve haha 😅
This is what I'm trying to solve: Knowing which of your problems can be monetized and scaled. Essentially, I am trying to make product validation easier.
I like it
This would be awesome. I think you'd have some trouble getting people to post their ideas without some sort of incentivisation on their behalf, best sort of thing I can think of is a platform to sell business ideas. Good luck!
Good point. I have thought of a way to solve the problem that completely eliminates the need to post.
This reminds me of Kernal https://kern.al/ideas
I’ve seen pretty well written ideas there where they explored the problem space.
Something like https://requestforstartup.co/ ?
I'm afraid pitching existing solutions would lead to a lot of spam.
https://medium.com/ondemand/how-uber-solved-its-chicken-and-egg-problem-and-you-can-too-fab1be824984 Here's the Uber's chicken and egg problem and how they solved it. Hope you find it interesting!
I created a list on my blog posts with websites that handle exactly your idea.
Check it here: https://whyboobo.com/startup/free-ideas-for-the-next-startup/
the concept is too broad, if you narrow it down I'm happy to give you a feedback, how are you going to connect the people and the challenges?
Check the comment by @shavin47. I guess I'll have to do a lot of manual research, but I think I can group specific problems and their solutions, and then point out all the the problems they have. Founders can then improve upon these problems.
This is a great idea but i'll like to know how you will scale and monitize it
Monetization is the hardest part. I made https://sbored.co a while ago and I abandoned it because I didn't know how to monetize it.
The idea I have now can be sold as a subscription or a one time fee.
Great idea, will be very helpful to bring some very useful products in the market. Are you planned to stick on it for SaaS products?
Yeah I'm thinking about SaaS products at the start. I can scale to other types of products later.
Just an idea, you can utilize tools like canny or upvoty, they provides most of similar features (Instead of taking feedback, you can use it to take ideas)
They are user feedback tools and are good for existing products
That's a good idea!
I will consider joining your platform with my products and solutions.
👉letscubo.com
Hopes to reach a cooperation!
I think you can go to a Questions/Answering service in this way like Quora for example.
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