Getting frustrated, every idea I have exists and is free
Title says it all. I don't really know what my question is, maybe I'm just venting. I feel like I come up with ideas, do some digging only to find not only does a solution already exist, but it works on every device and it's free. How the hell is anyone supposed to make money with anything when all this stuff is out there for free and works well. People are getting so conditioned to having things for free that I don't understand how anyone justifies charging for anything anymore and actually find people willing to pay.
For example, recipes - I use all recipes a lot, but I also find myself googling something and finding a recipe on a some random site, usually a blog. I thought wouldn't it be nice to have something where I could save the recipe itself, strip out all the blog stuff and just save the recipe info, and integrate it with a meal planning and shopping list kinda thing. Well here ya go:
https://lifehacker.com/copy-me-that-is-a-free-excellent-meal-planner-that-wor-1755962522
I've come to accept the fact that people have thought of everything and competition isn't a bad thing, and it proves that there's a market already and blah blah. But when the competition you find is always free, what other angle can you possibly go with to make money. Am I missing something? Maybe I'm thinking about the wrong kinds of products.
Why not start by taking ideas that aren't free and cost money.
Then either:
a) Make them better.
b) Make them faster.
c) Make them cheaper.
d) Make them easier to use.
e) Make them easier to find.
f) Make them better branded.
g) Make them better integrated.
h) Make them more secure.
i) Make them easier to pay for.
j) Make them more localized.
k) Make them more niche oriented.
l) Make them more social.
m) Make them more entertaining.
n) Make them more group oriented.
etc.
I like to take an idea and then see how many of the above items I can check off.
Don't feel like you need to be the first mover in a whole new space. There are countless levels to compete on.
It sounds like your "ideas" are random things you've imagined that might make money. A better approach might be to consider what you've looked for and failed to find in the real world.
My business is an example of this. In 2016, I was learning Elixir and was genuinely looking for and failing to find a decent screencast series. Both I found were much too fast for me, clearly edited and sped up in various ways and the videos were also shorter than I liked.
So a year and a half later I made what 2016 me wanted. Due to how I had found this "idea", the market opening was guaranteed.
So what the focus on innovation is super overrated. The great majority of business are just an iteration of other business. i.e.: Altavista-> Google.
Hi 5-> MySpace -> FB
Digg-> Reddit
Picasso said it best: “good artists copy, great artists steal”
Just keep thinking and seeking new ideas.
Btw did you notice that CopyMe has a paid version?
Have you tried this app? I'm asking because maybe you would find it not very convenient or not designed well - and there is a chance to create a better version. Another possible shot is a niche product. Recipes for the elderly, for pregnant women, for single men, for sportsmen (and differentiate by sports), for hikers. For example, I would like to find a good site with recipes of home-made nutrition bars and so on.
Another tweak - national cuisine, so many opportunities here! Just don't despair too soon and keep searching.
Good luck!
as @levelsio mentioned in a recent post, micro niche... nano niche.
I was also going to mention @levelsio for this. Also checkout his book makebook.io @stuter12
Very insightful response! Thanks!
I've been paying for plantoeat.com for several years now. CopyMeThat has a paid version. What can we deduce from this?
Maybe that people will pay for extra convenience. It's possible that good marketing can make people aware of a paid product before being 'locked-in' to a free one. You can expand a market rather than try to get people to switch. Also, you can't assume other products are profitable and will exist forever.
You can expand a market rather than try to get people to switch.
Good point. Too often I assume that everyone has heard of everything. Just because something exists doesn't mean everyone knows about it and wouldn't try something else if it reaches them first.
I make a recipe app that competes with all of the free ones... and mine isn't completely free... and it's making money. (TLDR at end of post)
How?
My app doesn't require the source website to us microdata/microformatting in order to clip recipes from the site. Every other recipe clipping app relies heavily on microformatting to extract recipe data. For all of the other sites they don't support, they offer a "cut and paste your own damn recipe" interface which is not exactly delightful from a user perspective.
Why don't other apps rip your idea off?
Because what my app does is hard to replicate. People can decide to rip my 'idea' off all day long, but if they can't execute, it doesn't matter.
Recipe apps are the 'go to' app for people who don't know what they want to build. People generally think they can make a good recipe app the way that lots of people think they can play the piano by mashing a bunch of white keys after too many cocktails.
There must be someone who can reimplement your app!
There are lots of people who can do it... but AI/machine learning people aren't dying to get into the recipe app business which is not glamorous.
Why don't you do something else with your skills?
I love to cook. I use my app almost every day. (I can't always cook on vacation) It's a stupid amount of work and I never feel like I'm moving fast enough, but at the end of the day I'm solving problems that I'm personally familiar with and passionate about.
Don't you lose users to free apps?
Certainly. I'm good with that. If your primary differentiation point is price, my app is not for you.
TLDR:
You can compete with free if you solve a legitimate and annoying problem that's technically and/or logistically difficult to solve.
My grandfather envisioned camouflage colored thermos' and lunchboxes back in the 70's. He designed a template and sent a lengthy email to Thermos. they denied his application and told him "looks great!" - several months later they introduced their first camouflaged line of products.
Everything is a remix. I too have these lofty ideas of making something new, but really it's taking something that sucks and making it better. Swappa.com started off with phones, and I emailed them to persuade them to get into the Chromebook market. They said it was too hard to do and they weren't interested, but a year later they do Chromebooks and more!
Sometimes your ideas are fantastic and even worth being stolen, and other times you are creating a solution for a problem that doesn't exist in a wide scale.
Focus on making something better that sucks, but also align it with a personal passion. That is my ultimate goal in life now.
My suggestion would be to use their paid features as your free features and try to find another way to monetize.
Maybe a mailchimp structure where they get X free uses or extra analytics or something similar.
Another option could be totally free with ads (we all hate these but it may work) or another angle that can help you monetize on the back-end? Maybe a training or something.
Just my two cents.
Thanks everyone for your feedback. The consensus seems to be, so what if you aren't first, find a way to add value, which makes sense. I think I got myself in a little spiral of negativity, so thank you for the kick in the ass.
I heard an ad on the radio in the car this morning that was fitting for this discussion. The company was Bombas - they make socks. Who would've thought you could compete by opening a sock company. But apparently their focus is on comfort, and they sold 1M pairs in the first 2.5 years. I thought it was funny timing to hear that. They are apparently doing well, even though you can get socks basically everywhere.
Don't look at what you use for free, look at what you're spending a lot of time and money on already. What are you willing to spend a premium on? What would you like to use or spend money on but it's super expensive and you'd be fine with fewer features? What is something that is pretty expensive and you can't believe people actually pay that much money for it? Here's an example: https://www.wonderbly.com/ca - A $40 children's book!
I for one spend a lot of money on courses, mechanical keyboards, gym gear, children's books. That's where I can look for ideas. A few years ago I really wanted something like Tableau, but with 25% of the features. Now there are alternatives and Tableau prices have gone down, but it would have been a decent idea.
I was also spending too much time setting the proper environments for machine learning in the cloud a couple of years ago. That's when I found FloydHub.
It doesn't have to be something that nobody has made before. I mean look at Github. Git was free, they just put in up in the cloud.
Here's another way to think about it, there's another post for B2C, I'm sure you can find it: https://medium.com/the-mission/the-startup-idea-matrix-b2b-edition-3973894d47dd
As others have said, it's hard. You're probably not going to just think of something no one else has, because everyone else is trying to do the same thing.
Honestly, at this point, I think if you want a novel or original idea, you have to become a domain expert, or at least, learn a lot about a given domain and try to find a problem that fills a gap somewhere.
I struggle with this too. I'm a software dev, so how the hell am I supposed to solve a problem in the real estate industry, for example, when I don't know anything about it other than going on craigslist to find apartments? I guess a solution to this is to network, meet a person who has knowledge in a field, find a problem they are having.
Two people I used to work with(devs as well) have recently left to form companies that have been funded. One with a friend who is a radiologist and are solving a problem in that space, the other has a partner who is a successful lawyer and they are implementing an idea the lawyer guy had that solves a problem in his field.
I've done this "finding a great idea nobody had" for too long and failed too many times. Over time I learned that your "idea" doesn't have to be unique, it's enough to have the same main idea but with a spin that severs a specific niche.
It's very hard to find unique ideas that nobody thought of and tried to implement when almost anyone can start an online business these days.
You're saying you find too many free competitors. So what? Doesn't matter you can't compete with them. Also, on B2C almost every app has a free version, try B2B where freemium is less used and more money are to be made. IMO, for a solo bootstrapper, a B2B SaaS it's by far the best way to get started.
Can i give a idea for free. make a app that suggest items to cook based on things avaiable in the house plus a tool that auto plan what to cook daily based on preferan. Me and my wife have hour long talk on what to cook !!!!! :-)
This comment was deleted 5 years ago
lets say cooking ABCD need ingredients A,B,C,D. I say to app i wanna make some thing using B and C as i have those. It looks up and ask to user do u have A, D, E and G. If user say i have A and G. then app finds a recipe which needs ABCG. Basically u tell what u have , the app tell u the least remainig item needed for possible option.
This comment was deleted 5 years ago
Two things,
For example there might be the recipe planning app that is free - but for example if you niched down receips for all to for those who are doing a keto diet or something - than build more value upon that niche needs you can justify charging
I've felt similar. Now, I'm just focusing on my brand, hobbies, and skills kinda waiting for something to put all my time into hoping I can build/have some ground under me before I full-time commit to a specific project. Probably not good hacker advice, but I'm just being honest. Good luck!
This comment was deleted 8 years ago
This comment was deleted 7 years ago
This comment was deleted 8 years ago