How to brainstorm great business
ideas
It's been said that ideas don't matter, and that only execution does. I wholeheartedly disagree. You need both to succeed, but you can only get so good at execution. A great idea gives you much more leverage.
Below is my framework for coming up with great business ideas.
The Basics
Most people equate product ideas with business ideas. That's wrong. Your product is only one part of your business. There are at least four parts in total:
- the problem you're solving and the people who have it (i.e. the market)
- the distribution channels to reach customers
- the monetization model you use to make money
- the solution to the problem (i.e. your product or service)
Great business ideas are strong in all of these areas.
Problem First, Solution Last
The #1 rule is to put the problem first and the solution last. That's right: your product should be the last thing you think about.
Why? Because it's the most flexible. You can build anything. But the other three aspects are constrained. You have to choose from a limited set of viable problems, channels, and models. Always start with the constraints.
Seth Godin puts it nicely in his book This Is Marketing:
If you find yourself trying to think up product ideas, then you're putting the solution first. Not only is that backwards, but it's harder!
It's impossible to design a great tool for a job before you even know what the job is. So how exactly are you supposed to think up good product ideas out of thin air?
You'll make your life easier and your business ideas better if you put the solution last and the problem first.
What makes for a good problem?
The first step is to recognize a good problem when you see one.
A good problem is one that many people have, otherwise you won't have enough customers. For indie hackers, this number doesn't need to be too big. Usually a few hundred thousand is enough. In some cases, much less.
You want these to be people you genuinely like talking to, because they'll be your customers for years. And ideally you have the same problem as them, too, so you can empathize with what they're going through.
It's best if the people who have this problem hang out together and identify as a named group. For example, "developers" or "teachers" or "NBA fans" or "YouTubers." That means they're likely to make all sorts of recommendations to each other, including product recommendations, which makes word-of-mouth growth possible for your business. It also gives you juicy channels to target, which will come into play later.
It helps if the problem is a growing one, meaning more and more people have it every year. This sets the stage for your business to grow. And you want it to be a problem that people encounter frequently, so they'll seek the solution on a regular basis.
Finally, and arguably most importantly, you want it to be a valuable problem. In other words, you want it to be a problem that people pay money to solve. Preferably lots of money.
Finding a Problem
Armed with this knowledge, it's time to find a problem. You're going to have to brainstorm. Some people recommend that you just sit around waiting for inspiration to strike. I don't. That might take years, if not forever. Be proactive.
It's hard to say where the best place to start brainstorming is, not because there are so few, but because there are so many. There are thousands of good problems out there, and practically anything can trigger you to stumble across one.
What's more important is that you recognize a good problem when you see one, and vice versa. If a problem scores poorly on the guidelines above, don't waste your time. Keep brainstorming.
For that reason, it makes sense to start with one of these guidelines in mind, and let that be your trigger. For example, since it's helpful to solve a problem that you have yourself, why not take a look at your own life and see if you can spot any problems. What worries you, exasperates you, or annoys you?
The other guidelines also work well as brainstorming triggers. Who do you like spending time with? What groups are you a part of? What are some problems you notice people solving frequently? What's something that seems to be growing into a bigger trend?
My personal favorite is to start by looking at where people are already spending lots of time and money and go from there. Money changing hands is almost always a sign that there's a valuable problem being solved.
Avoid Fatal Mistakes
Founders typically have already made one or two huge mistakes by this point. If you can avoid these, you'll be way ahead before you've even started.
- Starting with a solution in mind. I've mentioned this already, but it's worth repeating. You need to be honest with yourself here, because this is sometimes subtle. If you're already attached to a particular idea for a product, technology, or set of features that you want to build, that's going to ruin your ability to find a solid problem and analyze it objectively. You've put the solution first, and it's blinding you to opportunities.
- Ruling out already-solved problems. Nothing in the guidelines above says that a good problem is one that nobody is solving. In fact, the opposite is usually true. Almost all successful businesses start by tackling problems that have popular, pre-existing, alternative solutions. Too many founders are struggling to solve unsolved problems, not realizing that they're often unsolved because they're unimportant and people don't care. If people are already using solutions, that's proof the problem is real.
- Being afraid to solve high-value problems. Indie hackers in particular are notorious for only tackling cheap, low-value problems. But you don't have to sell something for cheap to have a chance at success. That's backwards. It's actually harder to sell cheap things, because people care less. I've bought more cars than back scratchers in my life. This is true even if you're a small, scrappy startup. I've met 2-person teams selling their software for $10,000 per year per customer. Pick a high-value problem and charge a high price.
- Not having a specific customer in mind. If you can't articulate whose problem you're solving, how is your website going to articulate it? If you want to wait and see who the best customer turns out to be, that sounds a lot like a key looking for a lock. If you think your product is for everyone, you're neglecting to make it great for any group in particular. If you describe your target customers by combining a bunch of attributes (e.g. "iOS users who need to get tasks done but prefer modern, clean UIs"), that's not an actual group of people. You're just describing the features of a product you're already biased toward building.
Some of these points are a bit counterintuitive. That's why so many generations of smart-but-uninformed indie hackers are repeating the mistakes of their predecessors.
But it's simple to avoid these kinds of mistakes once you know them. It's more a more a matter of knowledge and discipline, rather than genius or hard work.
Don't Skip Distribution
Once you have a good problem, you need a distribution strategy. You need an answer to the question, "How am I actually going to reach my customers?"
The number one mistake here is skipping this step entirely. Especially if you're a developer, a designer, or a creator of any kind—you're antsy to get to the product. Growth-related activities probably seem boring, perplexing, or even nefarious to you. You'd rather just build something so great that it grows on its own.
Sadly, that almost never happens. Relying on it is akin to playing the lottery. Sure, you've seen some stories. Some people win. But probably not you.
Remember that even though artists like to complain about the record labels, they do record deals regardless. It doesn't matter how great your music is if nobody ever hears it. Your business can't make money if you can't reach your customers.
This is too crucial an aspect of your business to put it off and leave it to luck.
Think About Channels
Fortunately, brainstorming about distribution is easier than you might think. You're limited to a small number of channels that you need to investigate.
From the book Traction:
For example, channels include things like SEO, press, content marketing, social media, sales, partnerships, ads, etc.
I won't get into testing traction channels, because that's beyond the scope of this post. But the first channel you start with should almost always be direct outreach leading to 1-on-1 conversations with customers, either via the phone or in-person.
That's usually the easiest way to get your first few customers. You don't have to be a marketing genius to send some emails or make some phone calls. You'll also be much more persuasive personally than your website will be on its own, and you'll learn crucial lessons from these conversations.
The only reason big companies don't do this is because it's expensive and doesn't scale, but that doesn't matter for you. You don't have to care about scale when you're trying to go from 0 customers to 1, or 1 customer to 10, or even 10 customers to 100. Don't copy what big companies are doing when you're a small company, or you'll throw away your natural advantages.
Later, however, scalable channels are important. It's not enough just to do a glitzy launch, because you can usually only do that once. You need to put some thought into long-term, repeatable channels.
Luckily, since you started by thinking about the problem, you have some hints. You know who your customers are, right? So ask yourself: What channels are they already making heavy use of?
For example, if I was solving a problem for software engineers, I'd be looking at GitHub, SEO (developers do tons of Google searches), Hacker News, conferences, code-related newsletters and podcasts and YouTube channels and communities, Twitter influencers, bootcamps, etc. These are all potential channels.
If you can't think of anything decent, that's usually a sign that you don't know enough about your target customers and how to reach them. It's possible that you need to go back to the drawing board and pick a different problem or set of customers.
Boring Problems, Innovative Solutions
Finally, think about your solution. How are you going to solve the problem for your customers?
Don't just copy what competitors are doing. Yes, I advised you to pick a straightforward, proven problem. But don't default to that with your solution.
If anything, you want to solve the problem in the exact opposite way your competitors do. This is where you stand out. This is where you innovate. Inject as much of your unique personality and ideals as possible. It can even be simple things. I made Indie Hackers blue because every other blog was white.
More importantly, your solution should be built from first principles. You should be taking everything you learned about your customers and working backwards to build the best solution that fits their unique experience of the problem.
This is the essence of product-market fit: tailoring your product specifically to your customers' needs. You want to make it such a good fit for these specific people that it's a no-brainer for them to use it. Stripe, for example, knew its target customers were developers, so they focused heavily on great API design and stellar documentation.
This is the kind of advantage you can only get if you've identified a customer and their problems before you started on the solution. Otherwise you'll build something generic.
You also want product-distribution fit. Find a way to extend your solution so it perfectly fits into your chosen distribution channel. Wes Bos, for example, tweets out educational tidbits from his upcoming courses, and it's some of the best content on Twitter. Indie Hackers' #1 distribution channel was HN, so I specifically modeled the interviews on the site after posts I'd seen succeed consistently on HN. Again, this is the kind of advantage you can only get if you've identified a distribution channel before you started thinking about your product/service.
(Hopefully you're starting to see why the #1 worst thing you can do is skip straight to this step and try building a product before thinking deeply about the problem and distribution.)
If you can't think of a good solution, or if it's too hard or expensive for you to build the solution, or if the competition is completely unassailable (due to something like network effects or economies of scale), then you may need to go back a step or two.
Commonly, what you need to do is take the problem you identified in step 1 and shrink it a bit. Make it more specific, so it affects slightly fewer people (a niche), and then try to think of a channel and solution specifically for them.
Start Small
The final mistake to avoid here is attempting to start too big. You are not Google, or Uber, or Airbnb. You're an indie hacker, and you're just getting started.
Big, successful companies looked completely different in the early days. Trying to copy what they look like today is a huge mistake. You have to work your way there one step at a time by starting small, accruing small wins, and building off of those.
For example, egghead.io started with the founder, Joel, finding a bunch of videos on YouTube, putting them in a ZIP file, and offering them to someone else's mailing list for a price. That's a far cry from what egghead does today. But he couldn't have started where he is today, any more than you can jump from the ground floor straight to the top of a staircase.
Take it one step at a time.
When you're thinking about the problem you're solving and the size of the market; when you're thinking about the distribution channel; and when you're thinking about the product: think small.
What's the simplest thing you can do? Great, now go even simpler than that.
The one exception here is your monetization model, where you want to do the opposite. Charge more. Indie hackers should not compete on price. That's for huge companies like Amazon.
Putting It All Together
This post came out much longer than I thought it would, but once you internalize some of the lessons, you can actually run through this process quite quickly.
True idea validation is going to require rolling up your sleeves, talking to people, and maybe even releasing a product. But you can make it pretty far at just the theoretical phase by thinking about some of the concepts above.
As a sanity check, try reverse engineering a few other successful companies by running them through this process. We've compiled a huge list of founder interviews, podcast episodes, and profitable products for this exact purpose.
Great article, very insightful. I so relate to the "Customer channels" as I myself struggle with this part and yet, it is the vital step to get to know your audience and truly understand their pain point and tailor your product/service accordingly.
Great article. Why they didn't teach me that at the Business School 😂 🥲
Let's do it now!
Good article. I've found keeping in my interest orbit is important - you must like and believe in your product, its value, and its contribution to solving a problem.
nice list, i will come here later once i have found the problem
Great post ...so true 👍
Great post as always Allen, you'll need to write one about Marketing
Yes! Tidbits about all 19 channels you mention :)
Aside: Thank you Courtland for all the amazing podcasts! I look forward to it every week.
God, yes, please.
This comment was deleted 3 years ago
This article helps me a lot. I made some mistakes in my first product, such as designing the product first without considering the market/needs/customers. It is mistake 101 for the indie hackers. I am working on finding the problem(i.e., lock) for my 2nd project related to custom products to avoid making the same mistake again. Thanks for sharing.
Great insights, Focusing on niches and starting small is smart advice for indie hackers, helping to manage growth and connect with early customers effectively.
The best strategy if you don't have a big audience or dislike marketing is to figure out what people are actually searching for and build a product around that.
Here is how:
Find a keyword (=google search query) that has > 500 monthly search volume (so you know people are actually searching for it)
Make sure that the keyword doesn't has a keyword difficulty lower then 20 (so it's feasible to rank on the first page of Google)
Make sure there are 100+ related keywords (so you also get traffic from these keywords)
Build The Keyword helps you to identify those golden keywords in 1 click.
Very smart approach!
All I can say is “gold” and this post is timely for me as I need to pick an idea. This puts a bit more practical flesh on the Paul Graham essay about coming up with ideas. Thanks!
leant more by reading this post than at a start-up incubator I was part off
Really good guidelines.
A recent example of not “Ruling out already-solved problems” is the hey calendar by basecamp team. Of all the products they could launch, they pick the calendar, something every major company has already a version of.
They never seem to pick unsolved problem, they pick already solved problems and they add their 37signals spin.
Looks very clever what they have done with the app but I wonder what the numbers are like in terms of are people actually using it
I made an audio version of the article for anyone who prefers listening!
https://play.ad-auris.com/demo/ad-auris/how-to-brainstorm-great-business-ideas
I think a great way to start is to understand who is your audience. Ask yourself —who would you like to serve?
By focusing on an audience you’ll enjoy serving, you will:
A good technique for finding the right audiences is to start with those you are part of or have a close acquaintance with. (For me it would be co-working tenants, UX designers, cyclists, people who are sustainability conscious, indie hackers, Etsy sellers, people with back/neck pain, independent book writers, Airbnb hosts, etc)
Add both individuals and businesses. When listing individuals, consider if there are relevant organizations that you’d enjoy serving as well. (if you like coffee, you might enjoy serving also coffee shops, coffee producers, bean roasters, coffee distributors, etc).
If you're looking for profitable product ideas, I share 17 techniques for ideas generation in my new book 😊
Thanks for this great post . really you summarised a lot of knowledge
This is brilliant. Thank you Courtland once again for articulating your vast experience in a concise way that everyone can understand :)
The Avoid Fatal Mistakes part is so good. As a designer, it's very easy for me to get stuck in design solutions rather than the right problems. Thanks for sharing!
Ah, I see where you're going with this. Customers of Craigslist and followers of Albert Einstein's work may indeed have something in common in terms of the channels they use.
Craigslist users are likely to be heavy users of online platforms, particularly websites and mobile apps, as Craigslist itself is an online platform for classified advertisements.
Similarly, followers of Albert Einstein's work, particularly those interested in physics and scientific concepts like relativity, are likely to be heavy users of various online channels, including websites, forums, social media platforms, and educational resources.
So, the commonality between Craigslist users and followers of Albert Einstein's work lies in their heavy use of online channels. Whether it's for finding goods and services, discussing topics of interest, or exploring scientific concepts, both groups are likely to be active participants in the digital realm.
Great article! Thank you for sharing good insight!
The key points are as follows:
The Basics: A business idea comprises the problem you're solving, distribution channels, monetization model, and the product itself. Success requires strength in all these areas.
Problem First, Solution Last: Start with the problem, not the solution, as it's the most flexible aspect. Focus on identifying a good problem to solve.
What Makes for a Good Problem?: A good problem is one many people have, ideally a named group. It should be growing, frequent, and valuable, with people willing to pay to solve it.
Finding a Problem: Be proactive in brainstorming. Look at your own life, interests, and trends. Recognize a good problem when you see one.
Avoid Fatal Mistakes: Don't start with a predetermined solution, rule out solved problems, avoid low-value problems, and have a specific customer in mind.
Don't Skip Distribution: Distribution is crucial; don't leave it to luck. Consider various channels to reach your customers effectively.
Think About Channels: Investigate traction channels like SEO, press, content marketing, social media, sales, and partnerships. Start with 1-on-1 outreach.
Boring Problems, Innovative Solutions: Don't copy competitors; innovate. Tailor your solution to customers' unique needs for product-market fit.
Start Small: Begin with small steps, accrue small wins, and build from there. Avoid trying to start too big. Charge more for your product.
Putting It All Together: Idea validation requires talking to people and possibly releasing a product. Use the framework to analyze successful companies.
Courtland Allen's advice emphasizes the importance of problem-solving, customer focus, and thoughtful planning in developing successful business ideas.
This is all great advice. I think one other piece of this is mindset. Jerry Seinfeld recently said on Howard Stern's show: "I'm never not working on material." That's always stuck with me.
Thank you for this post, really insightful!
"Boring problems, Innovative solutions", great article!
Great information and very useful for someone like myself just starting out.
This post is an eye-opener for a lot of people who want to start their own startups! Definitely going to bookmark this one :)
Thanks you so much, I got a lot of knowledge from this post !
Thanks for this great post!
One approach that has always worked well for me personally is the Walt Disney method. You look at the problem you want to solve from three perspectives:
In this way, you can reflect relatively well and also look at your idea critically yourself.
Of course, this is only a first step and in no way replaces the exchange with your target group. Only they can give you really qualitative feedback.
Thank you for this post!
Amazingly clear and relevant. Good job!
This is a great read!! I am currently trying to figure out a SaaS solution for the gaming scene, as we are currently one of the few social media sites for gamers. I want to build more features to ride that wave so to speak and create a MRR of at least 10k. That's the goal... just gotta find the idea that gamers NEED, not just a cool feature that will fade.
This is what I have been looking for to create a clear problem statement for my startup. Thanks alot!
Thanks Allen, It was a rescue post for me. I recently started building my first saas product. I was building a "Career site maker" for the new startups.
I was thinking about all the cool features I can build. Basically, I was going to make all the mistakes that you asked to avoid😅😅.
I am not saying I am completely dropping the idea but I will try to validate the above points first.
Thank you again for sharing this masterpiece. 🙌
Hey Prabal, what kind of idea there?
I recently had an idea simplifying the hiring process one has to do in a startup. There are a lot of softwares for managing hiring pipelines but usually they are costly.
I built up a low cost solution using Google Sheets / App Script for my startup and use it in every hiring drive we do.
Link: https://medium.com/gramoday/creating-a-low-cost-ats-using-google-sheets-f3dd8232d865
This is pure gold! I really appreciate you bringing focus to the distribution aspect of building a business, something I will need to be very mindful of myself.
But a lot of this seems super obvious now, having ignored a lot of these principles in the past when building a product. As you mentioned: it's super easy to just get into building a thing, a solution, as a designer & coder, without spending enough time really digging into the problems of the target customers.
Just need to determine your business model and ways to realize your strategy. Thanks
Excellent article, thank you
Man, I'm so glad that I saw this post now. I was taking a totally opposite approach. Thanks to Allen, I practically saved years of time.
Great write up, thanks! By the way, do anyone have an example of a "proven problem" as he says? Wouldn't that be reinventing the wheel?
First and foremost, companies are not inventions. Inventing something new is one way to start a company, but the vast majority of successful companies don't invent anything. So I think you can go down the wrong path if you start thinking of companies as being analogous to inventions.
Also, note that the "wheel" is a product. That makes it a solution, not a problem. As I said in the post, your solution should be unique and creative, but the problem it solves should be proven.
(Actually, it's possible to have a generic solution if you have a unique distribution channel or a uniquely affordable price. But that's a topic for another day.)
As for examples, again, I encourage you to check the IH interviews, podcast, or products directory. Here are some I found in just a couple minutes of looking:
I could go on. Recent podcast guests I've had include Sam Parr, who's selling news. Sam Eaton, who's selling cookies. Steli Efti, who's selling a CRM tool. Bram Kanstein, who's teaching a course on building products. Etc.
Building a business is not about solving unsolved problems.
That was quite interesting and refreshing.
Distribution argument is so strong and amazing how it should change the product. It's like what Marshall McLuhan says - the medium is the message. An updated analogy to indie hackers would be the - distribution is the product
The "Avoid Fatal Mistakes" section is gold. Reading that reaffirms some things that I have learned the hard way over the last 7 months and set me straight about my current worry of solving an already-solved problem! Thanks for sharing your thoughts @csallen.
Great write-up, need to study, need ideas!
“I've bought more cars than back scratchers in my life.” So true! And not to say back scratchers aren’t GREAT! They are! Just not worth the 5 dollar price tag (especially when stacked next to the chapstick and neck pillows) 😂
Thanks for the post. Insightful. Going to save for reference as we build.
Hope we get a post about traction!!!! Thanks for the great work as always!
very good article to read before starting any new project
Thank you. It was insightful
I like to schedule time with an accountability partner just to brainstorm. I learned this from reading Marc Randolph's book (founder of Netflix and author of "That will never work"). He and Reed Hastings had a standing 'date' to drive into work, and dedicate that time to bouncing around business ideas. Netflix came out of that.
Key to success: Picking an accountability partner who will show up and take the commitment seriously
Great Post!
Thanks, great post! took us 2 hours to read it..: because of brainstorming about a potential problem and market we have.
Given this post, the only thing I did correctly was to identify a problem and then develop a solution for it (1-2-punch).
I, unfortunately, took no major steps in researching a market or group of users, nor did I even bother with thinking about distribution (you nailed it in this post), thinking (falsely) that the latter could easily be addressed after a product was launched. At most, I had a very superficial understanding of who has the problem and how my product would benefit them--but, no concrete method of identifying or reaching them.
I also did not start small, even though, ignorance was not a fault in this regard. I read everywhere to start small and to iteratively build the product, yet my first viable product was essentially a polished product--not perfect by any metric, but far too big and complicated to be an MVP. This was likely because every time I wanted to release the thing, it felt like it needed more, "just one more feature".
It hurts like hell. Over a year of work, virtually no traction. I will never commit these mistakes again. That said, I also ran into other issues, like living abroad while trying to complete the project (don't ask), which had the unintended consequence of my social media efforts going to foreign audiences instead of the intended one (yes, they do that if you do not use a proxy or VPN--and be prepared for the major social media platforms to mistrust you [possibly reducing your outreach] when use either).
Although, it does have a small group of users who absolutely love the project--which, at this point, is more painful than if it did not, because, at least the latter would allow me to abandon it wholly without the lingering "what if?" and "maybe if I just tried xyz".
I used a very similar approach to build Herb and Founder OS.
I went from -$15k in debt to $8.7M a year (it only took me 8 years!).
It wasn't easy. It took grit. But it's been the journey of a lifetime.
I go deep into how i grew and monetized my audience on my YouTube.
nahhhhh, 9 months later today, i had just watched your youtube video, now you doing $13.2M. It's insane to see you on here matt, mind if we can hop on a 10-minute call?Learning from you 1:1 would be sick to me.
How do you approach brainstorming in a crowded market space where many problems already have established solutions?
Highly recommend reading Purple Cow by Seth Godin.
Great post! Starting small and focusing on niches is a smart move for indie hackers. It allows for more manageable growth and a deeper connection with your early customers.
Hey Allen,
Thanks the valuable insights!
I found a problem that multiple groups have. Should I start by chatting with users from different groups and then narrow down, or should I pick a specific group and start chatting with them?
Definitely narrow them down first. Pick the group you assume to be:
Hi Coutland Allen, great post. I am very new here (joined yesterday) and although was thinking about developing my own product for years, I really never was able to come up with my an idea. I think it is due to few points you mentioned here. Being a mathematician, I always thought I have to solve a big problem, it is a good advice to start small. also never had the brainstorming community to share and listen to. So just to use this platform, if anyone wants to brainstorm and share with a mathematician with AI and image processing experience, please let me know. who know maybe we can work together to build something great :) thanks
Fantastic. Just what I needed to hear right now!
thanks for your share
I build a AI brainstorm tools: AhaApple. welcome try.
Love it. Thanks!
Very Informative!
My first comment on Indie Hacker after reading a few posts. Great piece of advice for newbie like me, so that we do not jump straight to build the products without thinking about problem and distribution.
Thanks Courland.
Very informative!
Very useful!
Keen to learn from you, Keep it up and thanks for sharing valuable information
Need a whiteboard. Great Insights, Courtland Allen.
Great insights. The only challenge is to keep true and consistent to each of the steps.
Internalising the wisdom in this post is going to save ton of the time and efforts. My take away - Problem First, Channel Next and Solution Last. Thank you for this post.
"You should be taking everything you learned about your customers and working backwards to build the best solution that fits their unique experience of the problem" it is interesting how the problems of your customers are reverse paths to the solution
And over time you can pursue bigger and bigger ideas (problems) with the more skills acquired.
My idea of how to generate ideas: start building something, find the very first problem on the way, solve this problem instead of the thing you've started building. If you got an unsolved problem on the way, the others did too
Just like how mathematicians approach problems -- starting small. Great article.
That is a great article on How to Brainstorm Great Ideas. Based on above I have created a Google Sheet so anyone getting a New Idea can Test it.Link-https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1uG5QXPnZE37L-XpNhW6iEdo2Xf9nlsTMlPW8lZO5DpA/edit?usp=sharing
The article that goes over the “first principal” really unified everything for me. Thank you for informing us.
Useful information. Probably saved the struggle I'd have faced
Thank you for creating this. Definitely gained some knowledge.
Thank you for those insights, very helpful!
I am trying to sell my pitch deck templates and it seem it's a very competitive market which has actually slowed down the process to get sales. Brainstorming is on! It's a forever thing
TLDR: "Value Creation"
This is why I love research.
Research first, product and sales later. Yep.
I've been constantly looking for ideas, always uncertain they would sell. Now I'll be looking for problems and distribution strategy! Feels like a smart and safe way towards success.
Great post - totally agree with you! The difficult thing for me is to think in terms of problems and not always have the solution in my head.
This can all be summed up in one sentence: "Follow the money, not your passion."
The reason most people never take this advice is because they've been propagandized by mainstream media (and rich founders) to believe that pursuing money makes you a bad person, and that you need to 'build something you're passionate about and customers will magically show up."
The reason rich founders lie about this is because it makes good PR. Behind closed doors, they focused on one very important question:
"How can I build a system that transfers money from the customer's bank account in to my bank account"
This question forced them to figure out
Once they figure out these two things, they hire coders and designers with the 'passion' to build everything while they make a fortune.
So follow the money and you'll naturally do the right things.
This is just amazing! It's a kind of step-by-step guide that you can follow. Great article, loved it!
Excellent article. Thanks for sharing.
This post is pure gold @csallen!
I've been building a solution for 7 months now, and even though I've been doing validation and user interviews, this reasoning about thinking and modeling distribution and monetization before the solution really got me.
Thank you once again for building such a learning space for the community.
Great read.
Has anyone really found success just by doing the opposite of what is said here.
example, I just want to build something that is already popular even though it does not solve my problem?
Great Article!
I needed this. Thanks, Courtland!
This is great advice for both new entrepreneurs and also for ones with a bit more experience. Its good to review and reinforce these fundamentals now and then.
God tier post!
Amazing Article!
Don't be SISP aka. Solution in search of a problem
Awesome Post! @csallen 😍
Awesome. Do you suggest to find a partner when starting small?
Really useful info. Thanks!
Superb! thanks so much for this.
Amazing post! I will use this as guideline for my next business.
Awesome.Great read.Thanks.
Great info. Thanks Courtland.
Great post. An interesting follow on might be enterprise vs consumer. Enterprise problems are a completely different scale of difficulty and opportunity.
Thanks, Allen, Great post. Learned a ton from it.
Great one. Thanks much
Great post, thanks so much for writing! I was a little surprised reading "Usually a few hundred thousand is enough" in reference to number of people who have that problem. Advice I've always read (from PG, etc.) is you can start in a very small niche and then expand from there, as long as that small niche really, really has that problem.
http://monetizinginnovation.com/ is a good book on this topic.
In short: figure out pricing before writing a line of code. Figure out what customers actually want and what they want to pay.
There are lots of ideas that have made it not using this approach but he argues those are the exception
Digests like these are very helpful. Thanks.
Great read as always. Thanks!
this is awesome - thank you so much for publishing!
Great read, love this and needed to hear this...
Amazing post, thanks for this @csallen 🙏
I'm thinking this might help!
Lately, I've been checking out what's new on Product Hunt and chatting with friends about trending products these years. We had a few great talks, and we even came up with a mapping of products.
On this mapping, we try to categorize key products and feature by matching its product use case with the product form. The interesting part here, though, is the blank spaces on the mapping. We think that they represent products that have not been made, thus the opportunity!
We didn't finish the entire thing. After all, we can't know everything. As more and more people ask to join and collaborate in this project, we've decided to make it public.
Add interesting products and features you've seen onto the mapping, and create your next product/feature here
https://www.fabrie.com/workspace/63aea9a4c238913275207a8a
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