First post! any feedback is appreciated.
Hello fellow entrepreneurs, I would like to first introduce myself as this is my first post. My name is Ahmad and I am currently working as an Embedded Software Engineer. I've only been at my work for two months and I moved from one continent to another to get this job. We all have to start somewhere right?
My end goal has always been to do my own thing and to work on something personal. However, at the time I did not have any ideas and I just graduated from uni so I was confused and didn't know where to start. I decided to take the job and in the meantime hopefully, things will be clearer and I'll at least have a good income. As I was introduced to IndieHackers, I can confidently say that things have really become clearer and I am starting to understand many of the concepts and ideologies of being an entrepreneur.
I am writing this post today to get your feedback regarding an idea that I wish to pursue. Please keep in mind this is my first time to begin to execute an idea; therefore, I will need all the feedback and criticism. Please make sure to mention everything even the small details as anything will be helpful at this point. I will probably be back with many more different ideas in the future though lol.
My idea is to create a content-sharing website that is more similar to Patreon and Twitch than a regular blog. This platform is dedicated to entrepreneurs and creators. What inspired me was that I myself have struggled with understanding how an entrepreneur becomes an entrepreneur for many years. Of course, IndieHackers and many other communities have helped as I see many references to blogs and books to read. However, I think the market is missing a live representation of what an entrepreneur goes through when embarking on his/her journey.
Basically, the entrepreneur will be able to share everything that is being done from the very start. By sharing, the viewers which will mostly be people who are trying to become entrepreneurs will benefit from the encouragement plus the ability to follow an idea from its roots. They will be able to see what went wrong and why. They will be able to see how mistakes were corrected and the methods used to identify these mistakes. They will see how an idea evolves and how it is executed.
There are many more things to benefit the viewers. As for the entrepreneurs, I want the platform to be some kind of support system for them. They will be able to interact with people who are interested in what they are building. This interaction might help them further develop their ideas and to request feedback from the viewers. I would also like to implement a financial support feature like donations from the viewers to fund certain features in a project.
I imagine the platform to have live recordings where the creators go live and discuss the roadmap of their projects along with problems and successful milestones.
I am still in the process of having a complete idea, but I just wanted to make sure that is something people would be interested in. I plan on validating my idea further and I think this is a good place to start. I am sure that I have missed many of the things that I wished to originally discuss, so please remind me and feel free to ask any questions.
Thank You!
Basicly your are talking about is creating a Patreon like platform. Twitch on the other hand is a world apart from Patreon. Mostly for streaming games. Both have it's own monetization.
Look of what you say ...
"Basically, the entrepreneur will be able to share everything that is being done from the very start."
People already have afraid to share an idea because they think it can be stole ... And you want an entrepreneur sharing everything from the very beginning in your platform ? Write this down ... it's not going to happen ... They will tell you the general idea but not the specifics of it or the processes needed to run it.
Example: My idea is to create a drink called Coca-Cola. Not going to give you it's formula or the process of making it. No way jose. :)
Let's see if i can simplify your idea. Start simple is the key.
MY PLATFORM will manage a project roadmap from idea to startup
TARGET MARKET:
FEATURES:
Note: and don't worry ... later in your life ... you will have "live sessions" with your mother-in-law ... BIG LOL :)
I wish the best of luck to your project
Pedro
A "build-in public" destination site could be interesting. IndieHackers is a lot of this already, so I wonder how you'd be different and what the incentive is for someone to use your site vs. an existing platform (here, Twitter, #builtinpublic, etc)
Thank you for sharing your idea. It's not easy to start. Many of us has a lot of ideas and most of the time, the ideas are generated from our own observations and pains, like what you have been experiencing. However, here are some questions:
Have you considered what you could have learned if (for exmaple), a startup founder is sharing every little details of all the ups and down through the day, the month or the year. How would this help you learn better?
Privacy issues
Information overload
Who will pay for your product? Can you sell to a few user first based on your idea?
What tech do you need? Costs vs funding?
Has anyone else have the same problem?
Most of the time, it is not the lack of ideas that make people not starting their business. Most of the time, it is the lack of execution, consistency and running out money and energy.
Hope this help a tiny bit.
Hello!
Have you tried to look at existing solutions? For example there is #builtinpublic which to my knowledge is the same thing you explained.
A big barrier I could think of is that lots of people don't want to share their entire journey from the start. It's kind of too personal, or some may even think it's their "secret". Furthermore, you can read someone's journey, but most of the time you have to live it. In my opinion experience is more important than reading through 100 people's whole entrepreneur journey.
You said "I myself have struggled with understanding how an entrepreneur becomes an entrepreneur". There are thousands of content about successful entrepreneurs (for example: Indie Hackers podcast, Founder Beats). Sure, they are not as detailed as a platform you wrote about — where everybody shares everything — but it's just enough. I think that you can easily understand how an entrepreneur becomes one, you just have to look it up.