How do indie hackers find product ideas

The last idea I got, and have it pushed live came from my internal needs. Just had to test clients websites with their efficiency, accessibility yet the tools on the market weren't a good fit for what I need. So I created https://pagemtr.com.

That's the whole story :)

Summing up - probably the best is when you solve your own problem. Then there is a high possibility you will work on that project for months or years, not for hours :)

One of the best ways to find an idea, other than solving your own problems, is to find opportunity related to a product or tool you love. For example, if you love using Notion, you can create a Notion template. Scour through support forums to look for pain points to find opportunities.
Heck, even IH can be a great source of ideas. People are discussing problems they face every day, what tools they are using etc. All of these are goldmine for new ideas.

No idea is on the path of being validated until you get users on board but here are some approaches I've used in the past:

• Looking at what I need, real pains I've experienced (e.g. pageably.com is how I blog with contracto.dev, blog.mariohayashi.com)
• Solving your own problem is a solution for one; it's a start but to solve for others, look out for proxies that suggest it's a wider problem: people behaving in the same, specific way; people doing the same sort of work around; people complaining about the same thing
• Sleep on ideas. Evaluate if it was a good idea the following day or week. Ask yourself whether it's a made-up or low-value problem and test it with others. Often, ideas are rubbish and you'll realise it after letting it soak
• Focus on emotional impact: This is something I don't do often enough. Focus on emotional impact of the idea, rather than any functional offering/utility. If someone is ready to jump out of their seat to pay for your idea, that says a tonne more than a "meh" response

Thanks for sharing, there are some nice ideas there! 🙌

I've found personally my product ideas have come from problems I've encountered myself. It's a lot easier to generate ideas when you know what problem you're trying to solve.

For example, I've always been frustrated by the note-taking process for user research so recently I've been exploring how to make that whole process easier (whilst also learning React at the same time). Having a problem to start with has also helped me to focus on the functionality that best solves the problem (and deliver the most value to the user).

Thanks for sharing! Nice list of ideas :)

Great tips! Thanks so much.

Thanks so much for sharing, super interesting thread.

To me, finding product ideas is a combination of three things:

1. What I care about, as if I start working on something I do not like I will for sure lose interest and will dread do any work on the idea. So this could be a problem I want to solve for myself or something I want to build in an industry I particularly like.

2. What I know, both in terms of market and skills. Founder-market fit is often overlooked but it's really important. You need to know the inside outs of the niche you want to sell to and you also need to be technically able to deliver. It does not matter whether you code or no-code, but it's paramount to know your limits and what you can achieve in a finite time frame.

3. How confident I am that what I am building is a painkiller and not a vitamin: as a solo maker nothing is more dangerous than wasting time and mental resources (they burn faster than oil!!) building something no one wants just because I was excited about the idea and did not do my research homework. Of course this only applies to projects I want to monetise and like everyone else here I have lost count of the things I built "just because", but the distinction between "I want to make money with this" and "I'll build it just because it's fun" must be very clear from the beginning, imo.

So, final shameless plug, to answer point 3 I built https://problemize.io and I just shipped a new feature which helps you find services to automate based on your skills; you can find it at https://problemize.io/productize-me .

I actually posted an article yesterday. But this article is actually a couple of steps higher, it's mostly about finding what matters to you and how you can contribute to that ideal.

For sure, there is also a lot to do about the mindset. Do you use a product that you feel you can do better? Even if just a part of it. Then go ahead and become a competitor.

Do you feel that you need something that is not already available in your close proximity, go ahead and build something that fixes your problem in the easiest way you feel possible.

That's basically the mentality behind my new project podots.com. Yeah, there are competitors out there. You can even browse categories on all the major platforms.

But how do you explore new podcasts without having the exploration centralized by some authority (Spotify, Apple). How do you decentralize this authority? Well, by giving the power of curation to the community.

How do you do that? Well, a format like IH or Hacker News does just that.

And there you go, solving the podcast exploration problem through the power of the community.