You can't create anything new anymore

You don't have to create something new. Most businesses I see aren't groundbreaking novel ideas.

They're just slightly better than their competitors.

Millions of dollars of value can be created by something that is slightly better than an existing product.

Ignore that person. I've experienced e-commerce very closely, and there are and will be tonnes of unsolved problems merchants need help with. Running agency is the traditional way of solving those, but not scalable.

• If you see some potential in your idea, just start.
• Very important that you get into this for the journey, and not primarily for money.
• Know your limits, stick to a niche.

I am telling you from my recent experience in building Shopify apps. It has good potential, but definitely not easy. Shopify app store is underserved right now, and its a perfect time to enter into it.

Fun fact: ~350 new apps are getting released on shopify app store every month. And there will be numerous unlisted ones.

There's always something. For example, I'm tasked with setting up a Shopify store in Russia, and the plugins for shipping/fulfillment and payment processors is not great. Shopify is growing in popularity in this region and as of now, A russian will have no idea how to set up the store.

Is he right or wrong? depends on you.

If you find an untapped market, the day you launch is the day you start having competitors.

If you find an existing market with competitors, you know there's already demand for this which is a great sign!
The only thing you need to do (which is not easy), is to find your differentiator and hopefully your unfair advantage, did an easy way to attract users, and you have a business.

This person needs to read The Innovator's Dilemma. There is no industry in which something can't be disrupted. ecommerce is a baby industry, and we're still disrupting cars and food supply chains.

Do something you have a strong POV on. Fill a need that is painful. Disruption often comes from that, even if the size of the problem isn't immediately obvious.

In my opinion, in the e-commerce world specifically, there is an automation solution for every single daily task imaginable

true ... under some VERY ANNOYING caveats:

• you expect newbies to know about theses problems BEFORE they happen. This is almost never the case.
• you expect newbies to know HOW TO NAME AND SEARCH for the problems. I have this problem but have no idea how to describe or name it => I can not search for it => I cannot find a solution.
• let's say there are only 100 problems to automate in my ecom business. Let's say I am not a new player and I know every single one of those problems AND how to name them AND I know how to find the products that will solve them for me. Am I really expected to setup, manage and maintain 30+ integrations AND PAY FOR THEM ALL as my business scales (most apps pricing scale with usage nowadays)

Let's say we ignore everything I just wrote: the market is saturated, so you would probably be successful if you are offering any kind of simplification or bundling.

Sorry if I sound heated but that kind of answer you were given just makes my blood boil. It's just not how I experience the internet as a dev or even as a consumer. The fact that his conclusion is "have a winning product" right after he says the market is over-saturated.
I would not consider this message as a ref flag for you imo.

Ignore that person.

It's true that nowadays someone somewhere already made something. But it's not always about being the first (and I can actually argue that being the first is worse) and it's not about just having 1 solution.

There are hundreds of issues in the e-commerce area, and there are probably the same amount of solutions (if not). But are they good solutions? Can you make a better solution?

To paraphrase that person, "innovation happens when there is need for it" and I'm 100% sure there is still need for it, in e-commerce and everywhere else. Otherwise we'd still be driving the Ford Model T.

What you could do is try to identify Shopify apps with LOTS of 1-2 star reviews. This would mean that the need for the product is there, but the developer's execution is wrong.

Late to this thread but just wanted to share my take on this myth.

I'm not a product creator [yet], however, I managed to build 3 unique newsletters, all in the content marketing field.

Process:

1. Be aware of everything that's out there.
2. Get to know your target market beyond the basics.
3. Talk to people to find out what they truly need.
4. Start creating and tweaking as you go.

Recommended reading https://www.amazon.com/Zero-One-Notes-Startups-Future/dp/0804139296 it discusses this topic in great detail

did you try talking to merchants before building this product??

You should actively avoid trying to create something new.

I wrote a post about it here: https://www.indiehackers.com/post/need-a-saas-idea-to-work-on-next-year-5-myths-to-help-get-you-unstuck-over-christmas-d8d5632ede

You don’t have to create something new. Copy something old and popular and give it a way better UX and UI. One example that comes to mind is Discord. It’s a better IRC with a super slick UI.

I agree that innovation oftentimes is just improvement of existing solutions. However, in my experience, winning customers who already have implemented some solution is very hard. Their existing solution must be very bad or the (perceived) pain of switching to the new platform will not be worth to them. I think this must be taken into consideration before giving up or jumping in new project.

Every product that has ever existed is an iteration of a previous product, but in a slightly different direction.

The ecommerce market's needs may be very well formed for now -- and that's where the overall message behind the guy you quoted is correct -- but the dismissiveness and tone, specifically telling you to take the agency route is totally unfounded. You can take that part of the feedback and throw it directly in the trash. The first part of the feedback is valuable, though.

I think you just need to approach things differently.

Instead of trying to find some undiscovered need as alluded to by the comment: focus on finding some source of pain around existing products that exist in the ecommerce space. Perhaps there's an old commonly used product that is showing its age: can you build a better version of it?

And before actually doing any building at all: can you confirm that the pain with the existing product is being felt by others?

Work backwards: start from your potential audience, and move towards the product from there.

Who do you think came first? Airbnb, VRBO or HomeAway?

VRBO was founded 1995

Homeaway was founded 2004

Airbnb was founded 2008

I have never heard of vacation rentals before Airbnb. First =/= best. Best = best. Just do things better and you will win

Not every problem that you solve needs to be revolutionary. Often times redesigning something to be easier to use, faster, etc is a monumental improvement. One way to think of it is like hip hop and sampling. They're not snippets of old songs, but a whole new song. Its the way that it's arranged and delivered that makes it entirely new.

There's a-lot of unbundling and micro-niching in ecommerce and I would say that people that can re-bundle services and features in unique ways can find a place in an industry that seems like its already done.

The reality is that most of retail is not online, so there are tons of opportunities to digitise traditional processes/products and make the me saleable.

Innovation is risky and takes huge amounts of capital to test Product to market fit.

Seem like someone who had a bad day.
I live the Shopify Ecosystem for the last 4 years, and I've seen so many things change:

• New needs due to changes in the platform itself or in industries that are related like the advertising industry.
• New standards of how clients expect a shop to look and feel
• New audiences that joining ecom

And so much more, each one of these changes adds tons of opportunities.

I had an agency for 3 years and built apps for the last one, and this industry just keeps providing new opportunities, in long time terms, ecom has been super new.

This person is confidently incorrect. You can make plays into a very saturated market if you are playing into an underserved area.

But you have to ask yourself: is the problem you came up with a real problem (and not just your perception of it), is it an underserved problem (as in you can move into this area without much competition), is it a somewhat protected area or a niche market or your solution requires a significant cost (so that more powerful/established player would not immediately make a move against you)?

If you are honest with yourself and confident that you can deliver, there is no reason to move.

As others have said, you could ignore that comment, but I think there's a kernel of truth in it: Building a whole new Shopify app and then finding customers for it is likely harder than starting up a small one-person Shopify agency.

There's tons of people on Upwork and various forums asking for help with their Shopify stores.

I propose the following approach:

1. Look for people who have the problem your app would solve.
2. If you find them, reach out to them, have discussions with them, and solve it manually for them on a contracting basis.
3. Once you find enough of them, you'll naturally want to automate things, this is where you finally build the Shopify app you were envisioning.
4. Launch the app, but keep talking to people who have the problem it solves. You can now manually onboard them to the app, and save yourself a bunch of time with the automations you've built. On the side, start some marketing for the app so people can do things self-service.

This would keep you grounded, and might have you earning money sooner.

If you can't find people to talk to who have the problem... It's probably not a real problem.

If you can't find anyone who has the problem who is willing to pay you to solve it... Why would they spend money on a app?

If you have a list of real people you've worked with who have the problem, it'll be easier to know exactly what the app needs, rather than wasting time building things based on guesses.

If you've already solved the problem for people with your app, you'll have built-in testimonials and word-of-mouth potential from the start, which will make marketing the app easier.

We'd have a perfect world with all our problems solved if there was nothing left to create. But it isn't the case.

What is meant here by "winning product" in the context of Shopify apps? Are these apps which have many competitors but are the best among them?

I think innovation can be anywhere.
Even if it's just a feature that makes you different from the competitor. Or even if you have the same features, but the UX are different can be really innovative (like tinder: it's the same online dating that's been around for decades, but the swiping feature made it the best out there)

When someone rants about my product (ideabot which generates sometimes good sometimes boring ideas) I always think about the quote of Ford: "If I asked people what they wanted, they would've said they want faster horses, not cars" (maybe not accurate quote sorry abt that)

Or think about dropbox (you can even check their first launch on hackernews, and most people complained that they already can save and store files themselves)

There are situations when people don't even know they could use help/automation.
Or a better help/automation.

Name a task, and I’ll name a platform or service that automates it for me

This is the red flag. Most people cannot. Now the game is more about getting your product out there that's better in some way than a competitor, and putting in the effort to have it discovered first.

I don't think it's the idea. It's the execution that really matters. Some customers of "big" ecom feel forced to use their platform. You just need to find this niche and treat them as a first-class citizen.

Focus on the niche.

It's a good thing, that person did a research for you. Now you know and you can move on to other idea :D

That person is just wrong. There is more opportunity in ecommerce than basically anywhere. I personally know 4 people who made it to 100k arr in the last 18 months on Shopify. That's before you even look at other commerce platforms.

As an aside, the word, heck the entire concept of being demotivated is foolishness. That's not a thing. Show up, do the work. Be a person people want to connect with. That's what matters.