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Have you ran out of ideas?

What if I build a place where you can present your idea and validate it? A community where creators can share ideas and give constructive criticism. For example, I want to take the "idea and validation" section to another level.

Sometimes as creators or serial entrepreneur, we have too many ideas to count.

Do you think this will be a great idea?

  1. 4

    I have been doing this successfully at Micro SaaS Ideas helping 4000 subscribers (free & paid)

    Remember that people just doesn't come for a random idea.

    They come for some inspiration, technical help, marketing help, understanding the commercial viability of an idea or help with a PH launch. It could be anything. Thats what I learnt writing about 400 ideas with detailed analysis and interacting with folks needing help. Thats what exactly I am doing now at Micro SaaS Ideas every week.

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      Nice! Your website is what I envisioned earlier today!

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        It takes time. Right now I am planning to build community and tools around this to help early founders who needs that 'extra push' and 'support on social platforms' to start working on ideas.

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          That is great upen. building tool and ecosystem is important.

  2. 4

    I've seen this concept run a few different times and they often have the same set of problems:

    1. The people in the community are not the ones that actually use the product (unless you're selling to Indie Hackers)

    2. People are scared of sharing their ideas especially when it's only in idea phase

    3. Lots of junk posted by people that never had an intention of producing their idea or are looking for get rich quick schemes.

    If you can solve those problems I'm sure it would be a useful service. What might be more useful is connecting people with "ideas" to people in a specific industry or niche so they can get actual validation from a potential paying customer.

    1. 1

      Especially solving problem 1.

    2. 1

      I hear you! I didn't realize it was going to be an issue sharing ideas. I thought about the people who have too many ideas and don't have time to work on them.

      Do you think the reasons you mentioned is the reason why the "Idea and Validation" section is not that active?

      1. 1

        Some people get very protective of their ideas especially if they think it's good. If someone is giving away ideas then there's probably not a lot of value in the idea (otherwise why wouldn't they work on it).

        If someone in an established company or leadership position puts out ideas on Twitter then there's value in that because they are likely busy/already successful but ideas from strangers are no better than a drunk friend telling you how they will make their millions.

        I think validation of ideas is only part of the problem and just because people tell you they'll buy something doesn't mean they actually will especially if it's in consumer/free software. B2B software often requires knowledge of the field and most of the platforms I've seen before haven't been able to supply this.

        1. 1

          I totally agree with your third paragraph while totally disagreeing with your first one. You are correct when you say people telling you they like your idea is in fact not proof of anything. You are also right about most other platforms not being able to nail getting products out in front of the desired niche ( unless we are talking about buying ads which can be expensive).

          However, there are plenty of people who will not work on projects they feel is too much work. Which may not be the case for the reader of the idea. There are guaranteed profitable businesses that I don't work on every day. Simply because I believe the skills would take too long to learn or marketing isn't my strong suit, or I wouldn't enjoy the work.

  3. 3

    I guess many people are usually afraid to share their entire idea, thinking that it can get ripped off and eventually beat them to the market. Of course this is just what I've read and seen. I can be wrong too.

    Have you tried speaking to any founders and creators on a one-on-one basis? That might help you better validate the proof of concept for this idea @CharlieFerrer.

    1. 1

      I haven't tried speaking to any founders and creators. It was an idea that was in my mind for a few weeks and I wanted some feedback from the IH community.

      1. 1

        Yeah good work doing this post for sure. I think you'll find lot of founders to interview in the community 👋

  4. 2

    This sounds like kern.al . Maybe you should check it out, and see whether it fixes the problem you are trying to solve.

    1. 1

      I've checked out the website. Are you building it?

      1. 1

        No, it's just something I came across on IH. Launched a couple of weeks ago, and already has 1800 users.

  5. 2

    I wish someone interviewed experts from various fields, focusing specifically on their daily tasks that can be improved with software.

    For example : Lets say I am a tiny house builder - I only want to do what I enjoy and am good at, which is designing and building tiny houses. But I also have to do the most soul crushing task, which is keeping track of rules and regulations of dozens (hundreds?) of towns/municipalities on behalf of my clients, so the tiny houses I build for them don't break any rules and they don't get into trouble. It would be nice if I just put in a zip code and get the latest rules immediately. This might sound like a weird problem to us in the software industry, but this is an actual problem that I found while talking to multiple tiny house builders (in other words, I am not making this up).

    Now imagine interviewing people from various industries that we never think about. Simple questions like - what do you use Excel for? What are the repetitive tasks that you do everyday? What is the worst part of your job? etc etc. I think we can find tons of ideas this way. Maybe these won't be multi billion dollar ideas, but these would be very satisfying to solve as these are real world problems (instead of building yet another project management app) which can turn into nice lifestyle, interesting businesses.

    1. 1

      Very interesting perspective. Doing The Mom Test on behalf of the subscribers. But I think, to make it valuable, multiple interviews and deep market and competitor analysis are also required. Either way, it will so much better than shitty trend analytics tools.

      1. 1

        Yeah, multiple interviews on the same topic would be very useful. But even a single interview is a good start. At minimum, it would be a big improvement over guessing and reading through forums :)

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          How do you imagine it? As a raw interview text (or podcast) or a refined report? I've never read their posts but I think Trends.co does something similar to the refined report.

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            Correct me if this is wrong but it seems like trends.co looks for trends themselves? I understand people find ideas from google trends, forums etc. I was thinking of more direct approach.

            It would be nice if experts from various fields are interviewed. If someone wants to hire the experts for consulting, they can do so and the interviewer can maybe take a small cut of the fee?

            1. 1

              Don't know their exact process but they have various resources to spot trends, then they do research. So, as I said I've never read but they write a report about the subject. But I believe they should include the expert opinion in the report to ask for a $300 yearly subscription. 😂

              The difference between the other platforms like trends.co, I mean USP, needs to be first determined and then clearly indicated. Other than that, I loved your idea.

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                Thanks. Looks like they have a one week trial, I am going to sign up and check them out. I am intrigued.

                1. 1

                  😂 am not affiliated with them.

  6. 2

    This tends to be the solution that loads of people jump to when it comes to validating ideas, but in my opinion this would be a really terrible way to find a good startup idea. The root of a good startup is in finding a burning pain point within a clear niche, not trying to get a generic, unsegmented audience to give you the most upvotes on a snappy slogan. You're better off using a discovery framework like Customer Problem Stack Ranking than trying to out-compete a bunch of tweetable ideas.

    1. 2

      Wow! Thank you! The Discovery framework you mentioned is interesting!

  7. 2

    The only way to validate: Talk to users.

    1. 1

      100% agreed. A popularity contest method is a terrrrrrible way to build a good startup.

    2. 1

      Yes sir. You are right about that.

  8. 1

    Thank you all for responses. I was going to use this template and extend it if people are interested:

    https://wishlytemplate.bubbleapps.io/

  9. 1

    Is this what IH and this channel have been doing?

    How do you bring in active users and users who can give constructive feedback. Maybe you’ve some tricks to do so. I’m seeing IH the best community among many so far. Keen to hear your thoughts.

    1. 1

      Yes, but feel like no one is super active in the idea and validation forum in IH. I want to build a platform with bubble.io and use this template and extend it: https://wishlytemplate.bubbleapps.io/

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        How do you ensure people being active on your forum?

        1. 0

          Hopefully, a newsletter.

  10. 1

    Hey @CharlieFerrer

    I had this idea of hunting ideas, similar to PH but for ideas.

    Created the landing page https://huntstrap.com/
    posted in few groups

    I saw 50+ people signed up but eventually lose the motivation to make the MVP, just because to actually validate an idea we need a big community of people from different niches. And building a community takes time, at least for me.

    Secondly, there are a few subreddit and a new website https://kern.al for these validating ideas.

    Yes, it is still a good idea if implemented in better ways than existing solutions.

  11. 1

    I believe in ideas! But I think that the first step is better than just an idea

  12. 1

    I would consider building a site where people can share the problems they need solution for.

  13. 1

    This post itself is a self-referring and validating its viability.

    You want to know if a website/forum which validates an idea is valid or not. That is exactly what you are asking with this IH post( you are asking if your idea is valid or not). IH is already doing it as a section. IH is like a cafe where wr all come and chitchat, casually ask questions, validate our ideas, etc. A web app which only validate ideas may not work. You have to build an entire IH with main focus on idea validation. I am not saying competing with IH is bad, its alot of work and surely there is market, IH itself is a proof. Also I am noticing that the quality of IH is slowly going down over past few years (also IH is super slow in adapting new ideas). There is a market for better IH.

    You have to build a IH, not just a single purpose idea validator alone.

    Edit: spelling

    1. 1

      Well, this post is proof. This is the engagement that I was looking for. You are helping me out by responding to this post while helping others.

  14. 1

    I've got a list of "ideas" that I don't have the time, energy, and money to execute on in 5 lifetimes. And more every week.

    Ideas are the absolutely easiest part of the equation. There's very little idea in just ideas themselves.

    1. 1

      I agree with you. Thank you for your response!

  15. 1

    I have 50+ ideas that have been validate just need execution.

    But no one I tell takes them.

    I like the idea of charging for them now, but i don't have time haha.

    1. 1

      I have 50+ domains aswell :)

      I agree execution is more important than an idea.

    2. 1

      Haha. I think you should.

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        One benefit is that most of the ideas are related to my main business and I have 1000s of emails to promote the tools.

    3. 1

      Pay people $100 to create a landing page for each idea.

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        What would I do with the landing page? I have a full time business lol.

        I just need to someone to go out and execute on these ideas. Most of them are related to my main product and would add a ton of value to it.

        1. 1

          check out what Bannerbear's doing. Creators can help you, if they will add to your business pay them. https://www.bannerbear.com/jobs/

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            They would own the project and all the profits.

            I'm talking about SaaS ideas that I can't execute on.

  16. 1

    Well, I think you are correct in the fact that people need a better way of validating ideas. However, I don't think the validation part of the ideas and validation group really holds any merit except shooting down horrible ideas.

    Which in itself can be inaccurate. Paul Graham constantly reiterates that there are plenty of good ideas that sound bad at the time. AirBnb being a prime example.

    I believe the best form of validation is revenue. If people are paying for your product, they most likely want it to stay around. So I think your best bet is to drive traffic towards side projects (Product Hunt) or drive revenue towards side projects (App Sumo).

    Not to say that there isn't some undiscovered model out there that can do one or both of those things; I just don't think a bunch of people outside of the niche you are actually selling to giving you feedback will be of much help.

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      Do you think IHs should pursue "bad ideas"?

      The success I have seen comes from executing on old ideas better.

      1. 1

        I agree with you 100%.

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