What do you think of this idea?
So I had this idea for a web app. I created the landing page and mvp back in 2019 but I didn't really do things properly or follow up. I was recently reminded of it when I was googling how to come up with startup ideas. I want to start everything over again. I decided the first step should be to talk about the idea in its original form.
One line pitch(subject to change):
My company, Idea Vault, is developing a cross-platform app to help entrepreneurs create and maintain ideas by utilizing a priority based reminder and reporting system to keep ideas from being forgotten and neglected.
Basically I want to create a PWA that will store ideas and associated data and attempt to nag you into working on it and iterating on it. There will be (I think) three priority levels for ideas hot, warm, and cold. The application will attempt to keep track of your interaction with your ideas and remind you accordingly. Hot ideas will most likely send you a notification once a week. Warm will send you a report of your activity once a month. Cold will send a report once a year. The main idea is to keep all these ideas fresh in your mind. It may not be possible for you to act on an idea at a given moment but that is liable to change in the future. These reports are meant to make sure that you do forget for when the time comes.
There is a lot more to explain in regards to "associated data", "interaction", and "activity." But I will most likely make a new post discussing those things tomorrow depending on how this post is recieved. Now I know that the first thing that comes to people mind will be why not just use a napkin or a paper to accomplish the same thing. There a lot of reasons why not but the main one is probably that for a lot of people they would lose the paper.
I use Trello for this. Why do I need emails? To make me feel ashamed of my procrastination?
I agree. Any note app or to-do app will do, e.g. Trello, Asana, Notion, etc.
Hey David — I would rework your pitch. It currently sounds a bit too technical and I'm sure this could be valuable to people if they can clearly see the value.
Maybe try something like:
"Idea Vault is on a mission to declutter the entrepreneur brain. We do this by helping you organize all of your thoughts and ideas and giving you reminders on what you need to prioritize."
Not the best, I wrote it off the cuff. But using words like "cross-platform" seem like filler words that don't add value to what you're trying to say. Remember that not all entrepreneurs are technical.
Another thing, with the whole idea in general, you should think about how this idea would make money. While productivity apps can have a large TAM, they're hard to monetize. Put yourself in a potential users shoes — would they really pay for something like this when they can use a pen and notepad or something like Asana/Trello? I know your value prop (at least to me) lies in the reminder part of it, but do you truly believe people will pay $$ for that?
Not saying the idea is bad, just figure out if people will pay money for it. Entrepreneurs, at least good ones, are good at prioritizing and remembering the important ideas they need to give attention to. If you find it hard to monetize this towards entrepreneurs, maybe a different audience could make sense (like chefs trying to remember recipes and be reminded of what to cook next).
Just my 2 cents
I understand. Thank you for the feedback. I will try to find a way to better verbalize the value of the product. Maybe there isn't any.
here's my initial thought: "This doesn't make me more money"
Well properly taking a thought or problem to fully fledged marketable/fundable idea does help entrepreneurs make more money. It is meant for serial entrepreneurs.
I like the idea but I think you need to understand the pain point you are trying to solve more. It needs to feel like acute pain. If you can articulate it in a way that you can make others feel the pain too then you have probably grasped the opportunity.
Phil
Oxogen.io - Community of like-minded founders and entrepreneurs where you are rewarded for being part of the tribe.
This idea sounds pretty cool if the ideas were pooled from many people and queued by votes to the top
But then it'd just be a list of good startup ideas, which by itself sounds interesting. But yeah if it's just my ideas then other tools exist for this I think
Hi ! This is certainly that area where you need some sort of solution as I myself have long been in this phase where consolidating SaaS ideas have been such a pain. That said, my concern was more about structuring the thought process and perhaps documenting my strategies around the ideas themselves. Reminders, weren't really my concern as I frequently kept coming back to them. But a good thought David, nonetheless. Maybe it is relevant to others.
Two thoughts on this:
Make your pitch about the problem, not the solution. Who is this for? What does it help with/solve? A good, simple framework for this is user stories: "as a <user> I need <solution> because of/to <reason>"
The above should also help with this: as an entrepreneur, why do I need this? Why is it better than trello, notion, the-other-tool-that-already-exists-in-my-quiver?
From your post, I assume you are a developer. Developers tend to be in love with the solution rather than the problem and user. (speaking from own xp here) Watch out for this and try to focus on the latter before concepting or even coding your app. (again speaking from own xp here) ;)