Novelty is overrated, just copy what's working
Stop finding "ideas".
It is waste of time mostly. Especially if you are just getting started
If you are trying to find "idea" I would encourage you to find existing project on existing market with existing customer.
The reason is simply because you already know that people want the product. When you have find the existing business try to find out what some adjustment or niching down that can you do to make you business unique.
Most idea that working right now are built on top of existing and working ideas.
This same concept apply if you are doing almost everything.
Doing social media marketing? see what competitors doing.
Working out ? Observe other people.
The list will go on and on.
There is one book that explain this which is Steal Like an Artist by Austin Kleon.
Or you can read this blog post How to stealing like an artist
If you are doing social media marketing and want to steal like an artist, make sure to checkout app.socialtrendanalysis.com
Who says bootstrapped means small?
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Yes. Nothing is truly original. We're always building on the work of others.
Besides, it's not the idea that counts, it's the execution.
| it's not the idea that counts, it's the execution.
👏
agree . Finding ideas with existing market is way easier to navigate and make money
Perfectly said
It is a smart move, especially when starting out. You can better meet customer needs and stand out in the market by implementing something that people need. As a founder, I’ve found that making small but meaningful changes to successful models helps deliver real value quickly and effectively. This approach reduces risks and increases the likelihood of success.
Well said. When I was starting out I tried to show off by being "novel" when it is smarter to adjust something that already validated and working
I love this quote, cuz it's hard to come up with a new original idea, so why not look for the one you like and make it better than it already is.
Yup, one comment here that I found interesting is looking of the complain that the current product having and see if there is any opportunity there for you
You're right, I need to take note of this sentence.
thanks, hopefully it help you in some way. I wasted quite sometimes trying to create a new marketing, and innovation. Overtime I realized changing people behaviour takes time and so much resources. So built something that already exists is easier to get user
100%. This really applies to everything. I've spent my team recently trying to build the best UI, or have the best UX. But thinking about it, it makes much more sense to just copy businesses who spend millions in UI/UX design, rather than thinking as a solopreneur/small business owner, we can innovate over and above what teams with huge budgets can do.
True, I also learnt this from experience most things, not just business, it is better to start from something that already establish. Especially when our understanding of the subject is still in early staged
I love this! its been something I truly have to remind myself everyday, I dont need to reinvent the wheel, but I can offer my unique perspective and skills to the world. everything I have done on my business journey has been learned from youtube or books, if i were to try to come up with something entirely new I would find myself burned out much quicker.
The people we learn from and are inspired by are the ones who help us validate our businesses by providing proof it works!
cheers!
Same with me. Talking from experience, trying to do something unique is hard to get users as people are sceptical to try it out even if it is helpful to them. It take so much effort to do it that doing it alone might burn me alive lol
Great post. Creativity often involves borrowing and building upon the ideas of others.
Sometimes people ( even myself ) get stuck with creativity = novelty
Well said. I was trying to find new "ideas" but wherever I look, it's already done.
that is true, the really "novel" ideas either have failed before or it is not worth the pursue
What are the hot items out there now? I am mainly seeing AI start ups or generators for search’s
Its is not really about the "hot item" you need to find a gap on existing market. Some ways you can start is looking into app store and find item that have huge download with low rating. Try see what the comments are about, maybe it will give you some idea.
Product hunt and other similar place is also a good way to start.
From that try to see how the business find its user, get traction, onboarding etc. And from that you can see is there something you can do.
Sometimes the gap is in how the onboarding process are , or the distribution are etc.
It all about finding the opportunity
Solid advice! Find a gap and fill a gap great way to ensure there's a great demand for the efforts.
yup one thing that I should add, the gap sometimes in other aspect beside the product itself.
For example the product onboarding process is not very good, and you could see that there is opportunity there, or maybe you have reputation on certain market and could see the product work better with your reputation.
Amazon success is because the raise of internet and facebook is because mark zuckeberg was a student himself
I think this makes a lot of sense. A lot of the product ideas I have currently stem from using products that kind of do what I want, but are not entirely satisfactory.
I also think indiehacking, contrary to VC funded companies, tend not to be zero sum games. markets are large and diverse, and there is a lot of space for competitors to coexist - especially if you're not looking to scale like a VC funded business.
P.S. - I know all VC funded businesses aren't necessarily zero sum games, but definitely more so than indiehacking.
true, indie hacking lack resources that VC companies have. VC can spend good chunk of money to educate user on the product and its benefits, but indiehacking should leverage on something that people already understand its benefits
One approach I've read about before is finding something that has poor reviews to find out what the product lacks. Then, remake it, solving the pain points from the reviews.
That pretty smart way of finding the good product. If someone willing to take his time to type in what he hate about the product, there is a good chance that the user feel pain in the ass because of the issue
Indeed, sometimes even the best ideas may not have an immediate impact. Most people still need to learn from what's available to achieve their desired goals.
this is what I learnt overtime. Previously I was trying to do something that so out of the norm. Plenty of unnecessary thing happen. To explain what the product do and how it can help people take so much effort
Unless novelty is one of the core values of the business. Of course, there is rarely absolute novelty in developing new businesses, but people build businesses for various reasons. For some, profit is the driving factor. For others, social impact is the driving factor. For others still, novelty and solving interesting problems are significant factors. I personally find the latter to be essential, and building another improved version of ABC to solve the XYZ issue is just not motivating enough.
understandable. for me if you want to really solve interesting problem indie hacking is absolutely not the way. Because you might need team, resources, network to pull something off.
For indie hacking, mostly just small scale and aiming to make good money, so chasing novelty seems unnecessary
SO true.
Existing ideas are like validation of your proposition.
Without it, you risk making something no one wants.
True, if you have good network and insight then taking the risk might be great but if you just starting you might just want to do whatever that already working