[jcun4128]

I'm trying to get into it but don't know what to make. I follow Indie Hackers/Entrepreneur podcasts/wip.chat/etc... now I'm looking into Shopify stuff, make some niche API connector or something... but it will be a time sink to learn their docs/how stuff works on the Shopify aspect. Possible oversaturated market, etc... but I figure if I cruise through the forums/see recurring problems, maybe I can find something to build.

Recently I had a friend who runs a shipping business have me make him a PayPal button generator built into an email template that was mailed out so they could specify a price/tax/name/etc... That was cool, but I would not have come up with that problem on my own as I don't run the particular shipping business he does.

[utkarsh_apoorva]

This is a pretty interesting place to be. Since you have not yet committed yourself - so you sort of have a superpower that many of us crave for.

There are at least a few ways of thinking about this.

The well documented ones 1. Think about problems you've faced. Solve it. 2. Research online, find problems, fix them (what you seem to be doing).

Less Documented ones: 1. Pick a product you like - as a customer / user. Deep dive. See what they got right and what they didn't. Who they serve well, and who isn't happy. Then build something similar in a 'different' market (what Notion did to Evernote and Roam is doing to Notion, Freshdesk to Zendesk).

2. Think of 3-5 skills you've got as an individual. Forget products for a moment. Think about people - who can you help with a combination of those skills, better than most (or cheaper than most). Talk to these people. Offer your service. Later build a product around this (Close.com, and if I remember correctly, even Kissmetrics.)

[jcun4128]

I have a 9-5 job currently. Also contribute to a local "code for location" thing. I have some time, I have a bit though generally being single/no responsibilities other than myself.

I don't like that I have one income and I'm scared of losing my job sort of thing, granted I get a lot of recruiters hitting me up(though am I qualified, just string matching).

> 1. Think about problems you've faced.

This mostly it's an attention thing for me, I'm trying to learn Android/make a widget, I did the cross platform app part for the mobile/desktop app, for a centralized thing... this is not something that would make money eg. OneNote/Evernote/etc... Other thing is managing money I have spread sheet tabs.

Yeah only thing I use really are the note taking/money managing stuff(not YNAB or something just tabulating).

Yeah working with friends is hit and miss... I didn't get paid for that thing I built was about 14 hours(had to figure out PayPal's API(which one)).

I actually have few friends, most are in specific niches eg. aero industries.

Thanks for the thoughts.

edit: I didn't get paid because I'm expensive(to this person)/weird to ask friends for money even though time/expertise costs someone something. Arguable too can you charge for something you don't know... anyway it's still like one of those things where $60/hr or something is too expensive for a person.

At the end though, no I have not tried hard enough, I haven't launched anything.