[prox]

As Guy Kawasaki once said in Art of the Start : “You want to be high and on the right.” You make something everyone wants and is of great value, and only you can make it. The worst place is making something that 50 others do and is of no value to the customer.

[ramblerman]

Did he also say that you want to bring in more money than you spend?

Sorry for the snark, but how is this actionable advice? It's just a fortune cookie anecdote of a situation that of course would be profitable.

[zeroc8]

The only problem is that pretty much anything I can do has been done a zillion times by others.

[kjksf]

I doubt that's true.

I have literally hundreds of ideas.

As an experiment I put them on a website for anyone to see and "steal": https://blog.kowalczyk.info/article/e4132d5a44014b2aad81d815...

I'm not saying those are all great, profitable ideas.

I'm saying that they are doable by a competent programmer and unique enough. Certainly not "done a zillion times by others".

[herval]

Almost all the “ideas” in your list are “make X with Y”. They’re not unique by definition. It’s a nice exercise for the brain, but you won’t really ship anything people use that way.

[myk9001]

Sorry for an off-topic comment!

I'd like to take this opportunity to thank you for your work on SumatraPDF. My favorite, hands down.

(Following the link you posted, I realized you're the author.)

[yayr]

Try to translate this list into:

Let [customer group] do [pain point solved].

[zepolen]

That list really drives home the 'ideas are cheap' phrase.

I guess the good ideas are expensive.

[kjksf]

I very much agree that ideas are cheap.

I don't agree that "good ideas are expensive".

The issue is: we don't know which ideas are good or bad.

The stats from Venture Capital markets are showing that clearly.

Before someone even gets a meeting with a good VC firm the idea is already filtered 100-1 if not 1000-1.

Of those who get the meeting, maybe 1 in 100 get an investment.

Of those that get an investment, out of 10 maybe 1 or 2 become the really great successes and the remaining 8 are somewhere between "mild return" and "complete failure".

Since even the best of the best cannot tell what idea is good and which one is bad, we value all ideas as bad ideas i.e. at zero.

I'm quite sure that in that list I've posted there are at least few good ideas i.e. ideas that, when well executed, would lead to a profitable, solo business.

I just don't know which ones are good.

[bumby]

>ideas that, when well executed

I think this is part of the issue. Unlike the GP, I think the expectation is often both difficult and sometimes expensive. Often ideas seem bad only because they were executed poorly; good execution acts as a type of filter.

[antykodon]

Could you please share the source of these VC stats?

[sokoloff]

That might appear to be the case, but probably isn’t. There’s often not anything harder to implement a CRUD app that solves a novel problem than implementing a CRUD app that solves the same problem as 100 other people are hawking.

[adrianN]

Figuring out what problem to solve is the most difficult part for most side projects. Unless you personally have an unsolved problem that by chance many other people also have, finding something good requires either luck or talking to many potential customers.

[bumby]

I think one way to narrow down to something relatively unique is to look for the Ven diagram of skills and interests. If you layer enough, there's bound to be some areas where relatively few people how the knowledge and passion to pursue. It's no guarantee you'll make money, but it at least helps identify areas you can stand out.

[tjpnz]

How thorough have you been in researching competitors? I'm willing to bet that there'll be some differences either in target market or execution. Even if it's effectively the same product maybe there's something they've missed which would give you a significant advantage early on?

[jhoechtl]

With the internet economy enabling perfect markets, everyone is competing with good enough monopolists so tiny niches remain to become successful.

perfect market = Market with a perfect allocation between demand and supply, because of no information deficiencies.

[pvaldes]

Find a specialized niche then