I've got 12 ideas to choose from for the next month, help me pick one.

For selfish reason, I vote Google Docs powered wiki. I don't currently utilize anything at the moment for an internal wiki, but I do know that once I get my startup team selected and development actually goes underway, I'd like to have an internal wiki for content-sharing and standardization purposes.

1. Twitch for makers/entrepreneurs

That is probably just Twitch. How would yours be different / better?

Sounds like a lot of solutions looking for problems.

1. Drag and drop songs. Dang it I can never find new music

Spotify -> Browse -> Discover. Or if you like a song, right-click -> Song Radio. Same for artists you like: right-click -> Artist Radio.

Or last.fm -> search -> similar artists/music.

1. Have feedback?

Heads up: I've already built that, 100% free forever, no-code, doesn't require any back-end hosting to send the email (but can optionally still be done). Indeed takes less than 30 seconds.

I'm just finishing the webpage I'll host it on before I publish.

I personally like #8, contributing to open source is a great way to keep your skills up (& improve your resume) but finding a project can take some effort. Not sure how you'd monetize it though, "I like it" doesn't mean "it'll be a great business".

#1 can be done really quickly. Don't build your own platform (video streaming platforms = complicated and expensive). Instead, give each founder their "corner" where you store VODs. Can use Twitch VODs or Youtube. Serves as an "indie founder discovery" site for building startups in the open. Can be done manually at first w/ landen.co or carrd.co. I would personally consider streaming if this would exist. Again, monetization will be hard unless you get traction/visitors (e.g. advertising). Small market atm, so don't let it take up too much time to validate (but has potential to push productivity similar to wip.chat - we're already building anyway, so founders don't need to change their productivity).

#6 has potential and easier monetization. Value also strengthened by the usability boost of usefyi (versus other wikis/platforms), as well as Zapier for automation and other platforms that integrated GDocs. Using GDocs = you get that integration for free. MVP also doable in 1 or 2 weeks. I personally don't need it though, so wouldn't pay for it.

Google docs powered wiki 🙌🏼

Awesome list Grant. Cool to see so many creative ideas flowing from you.

#1 sounds similar to newCo by @bentossell :)

Google docs powered wiki!! I'd love that!

Hey, I am working on one of your ideas. Google Docs powered wiki. Been on it for less than a month now. Want to collaborate? Working alone sucks 😢

@gkiely I'd love to chat about the wiki. I've wished for this with several startup teams over the years, and for teams that I mentor.

@caitlinjohnson @bootstrapCHILA @r4id4 @vbordo @Denis
@joejoe @markuretsky

Do you guys mind if I shoot you a quick email around the Google Docs powered wiki idea?

It's the one I picked and I’m trying to gather as much feedback as I can before I start.

Thanks to everyone who gave feedback, I'm very grateful for your time and input and the response was far greater than I was expecting!

Based on the responses and a bit of market research I've decided to go with "Google docs powered wiki" idea.

It was the one I was secretly excited about :D but I was trying to put that excitement aside so I could be as unbiased as possible in accessing the market and idea.

I will keep the other ideas in mind for the future. Really excited to build this over the next month!

If you're currently using Google docs and you're finding it a bit messy or you're just generally interested in a Google docs powered wiki, I'd love to chat to you about what you've tried and what problems you've had up until this point, just ping me on here or via my email in my profile and I'll get back to you.

Thanks!

@gkiely Looking forward to whatever you build. I'm sure you will get some good content from documenting the process. I noticed postinspect hasn't been added to your list of products yet.

I've actually been thinking/dreaming of number 9, I agree with your sentiment that the code search takes too long and always leads to the same thing, first result for stackoverflow, codeblock in the most upvoted/accepted answer. I would love to have/help build this service (plus so many other ideas could stem from this service to further speed up development).

These are my favorites in this order:
6., 7., 1., 3., 11.

go with Twitch for X. Plenty of youtubers who are unhappy with YT and have huge pains and a desire to take more control.

I'd vote for Twitch for entrepreneurs.

I just launched something today which might help you decide.
It's like Product Hunt but for ideas. The best ideas of the day get voted up

https://ideasareworthless.io/

Im extremely biased towards #3 and #4 because Im really into components stuff ^^. Not sure If I would personally subscribe to another newsletter, but I think many people would. I think the component world is a perfect combination of Design + Development so many people from both worlds might be interested. Also it can easily be made very eye catchy!

And for the component storage it would be amazing, to find components (from all frameworks, native spec etc...). Something like this: http://collectui.com/ but on a per component basis, and with code backing it up. "I need a date picker > Searches date pickers > Gets repo" even if you find it done using a different library/framework it might give you the inspiration to port it on your own.

Great ideas!

Hi Grant

Great list!

Here's my feedback:

1. There's youtube, will be too hard to market, get content.
2. I dont think there is much demand if people are using s3 they are already savy and will find a solution.
3. Maybe, will take time.
4. That could be cool i also had an idea to create universal open source bare bone components with all the functionality and you just modify the desgin. It will be probably useful but hard to monetize, now there is official materialui with great components.
5. I agree spotify sucks to find new music.
6. I pick this one but in a bit different way: if you do what ghost did to blogging. E.g. create a documentation, product faq, api docs, prodicts docs, wiki. And have the same business model as ghost (open source + paid cloud hosting). I really like this one and would co-create it :)
7. Possibly but buffer.com?
8. Github seems to do a good job?
9. One trick i started just saving them somewhere if there a chance i need it again. That something you could build with number 4 collect frequently happens bugs on one page :)
10. No odea.
11. I think its easy to find a software for feedback there are just so many.
12. Why anyone will need that? It's just nice to have.

Hope it helps!

9

I found this section of Josh Kaufman's 'The Personal MBA' to be quite useful in determining what a good idea might be:

https://personalmba.com/10-ways-to-evaluate-a-market/

Score each of your ideas (in a spreadsheet or something) on each of these criteria out of 10, then...

When you’re done with your assessment, add up the score. If the score is 50 or below, move onto another idea—there are better places to invest your energy and resources. If the score is 75 or above, you have a very promising idea—full speed ahead.

Anything between 50 and 75 has the potential to pay the bills, but won’t be a home run without a huge investment of energy and resources, so plan accordingly.

Hi Grant. I'm impressed by how you can come up with a lot of ideas so easily. How do you do that?
Cheers.
Anyway I like your idea #3 because it will teach new developers new things. With time, you will figure out which web component moves people the most. If people want to know more about a particular web component and how it works, then they will want to pay to know even more about it

I'd say the image proxy for S3 (assuming you'd scan people's images who aren't hosting them on S3, then host them on S3 for them, and hence bring down their costs) seems like its solving the biggest pain.

I like idea number 9, but I think I have found a similar search engine before: https://publicwww.com

4 and 12 seem to be the best options.

I think you should verify your product concept with the audience and I think that #4 is best option for you to get started.

Also, I am subscribed to you (thanks to Product Hunt).

IDEA: IH Rush Hour

I mentioned it in a private tweet to grant, but he's already done a site that helps you see best traffic times for reddit, should he do that here?

I love idea number 1. I would definitely stream my work.

The Google Docs powered wiki is an interesting idea that you should definitely pursue.

I have this exact Twitch idea written down on my list of ideas too. Your proposed MVP of a curated list of IHers who stream is a great start. Here are a few obstacles I keep coming back to with this concept.

In my observation of Twitch streaming + reading discussions with IHers who stream, the act of working live tends to diminish productivity. To maintain a large following, the streamer has to be attentive and keep a dialogue with the audience at all times. This is difficult to deliver as a productive maker.

As with any Twitch stream, viewers don't have much interest in the average maker. They want to be watching the best in the field, i.e. Ninja playing Fortnite. Currently, there isn't a great incentive for top makers like Pieter Levels or Mubs to stream if it cuts into their productivity.

Second, the market for watching makers work is probably growing but still relatively small. This somewhat ties into the above issue because the lack of viewers increases the difficulty of creating a financial incentive for top makers.

Let me know if you want to trade thoughts about the Twitch idea. It's a pretty fascinating one to think about!

If you want to build a profitable business, then the opinions of others on here probably isn't going to give you the right answer.

Why not build 12 landing pages this week and test them out? Then build the idea that gets the most traction.

Are you looking to make it into a business or just for the joy of building it? If just for the joy of building it, then maybe you are the best judge.

As a business, I think google docs powered wiki is a good idea. Google docs is great for collaborating on individual docs but when you need to put together a list to hand over during onboarding a new employee/for knowledge management, there is no way I could find to build a good list. I would like to be able to prioritize it the way I want, make different list of docs etc for different purposes.

I started using Tettra and am paying for it which works well for the list but comes nowhere close to the power of editing/collaborating that Google docs offers.

Twitch for entrepreneurs also sounds interesting but I am guessing some people's work is going to be more interesting than others. What specific pain point do you think it can solve?

I am not a developer so can't comment on the other ones.

Google docs powered wiki sounds promising

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