What are some of the latest waves you see?
I can't help but notice that a lot of the companies we look up to were created on the heels of larger trends - Basecamp during the start of the emergence of web apps, Facebook and Twitter during the hay days of social networking, Instagram at the time when we first started carrying around smart phones, or even Baremetrics as Stripe took off. While some of these examples may not be entirely accurate, I hope you understand where I'm going with this.
So I'm curious - what trends, movements, or shifts are you seeing that might be passing the rest of us over? Heck, even glaringly obvious ones are worth discussing.
If you are an Indie developer (not a VC backed startup) you will be better off riding small waves rather than chasing broader themes. Pick a niche that you have passion and interest. I think Baremetrics is a good example for this. Also, people like Wes Bos, who makes a living by riding the React wave (in the past, I benefitted from jQuery & Rails trend).
Here are few niches I'm personally interested in as a developer:
When it comes leveraging them, I try to frame them in 3 ways:
What are the most obvious applications I can build with them?
Is there a void for education & skilling up in these technologies?
Are there any utilities I can build for others using them?
this is a great reply. Your side project is probably not going to ride some of the major trend waves, but it can own some of the smaller waves.
So I'm that guy that writes a popular post then leaves for a work trip and doesn't come back for a week.
I get what you're saying, and it's not so much as I'm looking to uncover 'the next big thing' and chase it, I was looking for more simplistic - you stated it well, niche opportunities.
Non traditional education. The current brick and mortar approach to schooling is dated, expensive and inefficient. People are (and have been) flocking to alternate options like mentorship, coding bootcamps and online courses to further their careers and/or gain new marketable skills. I believe the number of people seeking out non standard approaches to learning will sky rocket in the coming years.
I'd be happy if K-12 adopted some of the proven, successful MOOC approaches. It's sad / disappointing / aggravating to see how many students of public schools are semi-literate and totally unprepared for life
Besides coding, have you come across any other very popular bootcamps or trending courses? I sometimes play around with the idea of a 21st century course for millennials. Not the typical personal finance blog that shows a picture of a laptop on a beach, but actual step by step guidance about finding an apt through craigslist, finding a job using Indeed/Linkedin, good opening lines for online dating, etc..
Most that I've encountered are in tech-related disciplines like development, design, UX, online marketing, entrepreneurship etc... I think there are a few factors that make people looking for these skills early adopters of alternate learning formats:
I wonder how much of that will expand beyond online marketing and development and into more traditional disciplines.
Its already started.. check out the Coursera and Kahn academy catalogs. Lots of traditional disciplines listed but I agree non tech content hasn't reached widespread adoption.
Marc Andreessen calls this the single most reliable source of new ideas adopted by the broader culture and economy. This is a great question that I ask myself often when looking for next trends.
Look around and see what the smartest people are working on or at least are excited about. Cryptocurrency, biohacking, quantified self, synthetic biology, virtual reality, drones, and self-driving cars are all good examples today.
As an aside, this test may not be highly relevant to indiehackers per se. A lot of lifestyle businesses you can build today do not have to or need to ride the latest trend. :)
Anything AI related (bots included), and most of all crypto currencies.
Influencer marketing. People are watching influencers more and more. Making partnerships with them, working with them, is becoming more and more important. They are a sort of short cut to word of mouth, since they will talk about your product with their viewers.
I agree with some of the others here: as an indiehacker it might be hard to jump into some of the emerging trends: VR / AR / Blockchain can be tough without investors. Not that it can't be done but it won't be easy and it's even more risky than a regular project.
Personally, I do think that remote work is on the rise and will continue to do so. That's why I'm working on Hirely.
I think an interesting take on this is, that these business are on the vanguard, adopted by tech savvy people and business, while more traditional businesses are laggards.
I am working on a project management software for a vertical that is just now opening up to SAAS with the bulk of their software still running on premise. We are probably too late to ride the main wave of most trends we can spot right now, but the once there is a proven trend leading the charge it might pay off to look at industries who are traditionally late adopters.
Podcastingis becoming a big thing. It's been around for over ten years... but the recent shift in popularity is real. People are starting to make serious money off of podcasting. Some podcasts have even turned into Hollywood contracts (Wired article).The technical & cost barrier of entry is super low. A lot of, and this detail is important, non-technical people turn to podcasting as a pastime, and companies are using it as an essential ingredient in their marketing mix. That's not nothing. In podcasting we might realistically be, right now, where YouTubing was in the early 2010's.
I'm glad you said this, I had the same notion and I'm glad to hear I'm not the only one who's noticed.
What do you think about the potential for new products in the podcasting tools market?
Of course! It's definitely not a winner-takes-all market. 🤓
Honestly, on iOS, I STILL have not found a podcasting client that's ACTUALLY good. After trying several, I'm back to the Apple default client and it's still got mind-boggingly stupid problems (like I can't resume a podcast I already started listening to if I go underground, because apparently it didn't just pre-download the stupid thing).
VR/AR, it wouldn't surprise me if Amazon buys Snapchat for their AR technology
I agree. Definitely a movement.
If you could check out the Limor app which is designed for podcasting and social audio and give us any feedback that would be great everyone - we are seeing a lot of growth in shorter podcasts hence, social audio
What people are not looking much into yet, but I believe they should - is space. Space travel and exploration becomes more and more affordable (thanks, Musk), but people don't know yet what we will be able to do with it. In the same way when internet happened, no one knew what opportunities it would open up, and a lot of people were skeptical. Days are coming when sending your own satellite into space would be an easy thing to do, or perhaps sending to Mars your own rover that you bought on Amazon for $99.90. Long ago industrial revolution happened, then digital revolution, space revolution is coming.
blockchain
Block Chain and Distributed Apps.
@zyzyx - re Blockchain and DLT: First we have to get past the crypto / ICO-hype. The, we have to build products that actually leverage the technology, rather than simply adopt it in order to raise money.