Just thought this would be a neat topic for HN since my recent research shows that there are surprisingly many programmers out there (two thirds of responders in my survey) who want to start a side project for profit, but their main problem is just finding the initial idea.<p>Full disclosure: I am working on a book on how to find and test Software-as-a-Service ideas.
No, I have very many ideas. I have neither the time nor skill to do anything with them. I write them down and I'll put them on a bit of WWW space sometime.<p>EDIT: Some of the more sensible are around behaviour modification. They're all a bit UK-centric, but modifiable.<p>EG<p>1) drink diaries. People aren't aware of how much they actually drink, so an easy way of keeping track and then converting that into the UK standard "units" would be good.<p>2) Budgeting for poor people claiming benefits. Benefits might be changing to monthly payments (from fortnightly). People say this is going to be very hard to adjust to. A simple app to help people keep track of money in and out is handy. What makes this "fun" is the need to make it work on not-smart phones and non-data plans.
Finding a (good) idea is challenging, but I feel there's lots of good advice (especially from some of HN's more prolific posters) on how to vet good ideas with some rigor.<p>I feel the bottleneck is in the validation phase. You can be brainstorming dozens of ideas, but to go anywhere with them, I feel you should research, talk to people, look at stats/trends, maybe build a brochure site/MVP and capture some leads, etc. These all take time, effort, (some) cost, and of course require the dreaded act of communicating with other human beings.<p>Idea work comes naturally to hackers, but communication doesn't. Plus, once you're considering communicate an idea to others, subconsciously you acknowledge that it might not be well-received or fail to take off. I believe that (in my case at least) this causes a big bottleneck. I'm always happy to ponder ideas, but seem to have less enthusiasm to do the legwork to validate them!
My situation is like this:<p>1- I have 3 good ideas.
2. I've researched a lot and worked hard on specs, UX, UI, pitch, branding
3. Started to bootstrap as much as I can do (i'm not 100% engineer)
4. Looking for angel investment and vc.<p>My problemas are not the ideas, I ditch every single idea I can't validate it, my single problems are: finding a good co-founder, heavy coder so we can venture both in the ways of nerdism with the proyect and capital. I can't do code + capital search + company administration, etc. etc.<p>Every time I pitch my 2 biggest ideas people get shock but they're too ambitious and requiere, maybe 10 people working full time on it. After we validate the model with real people, the lean way, ofc.
Yes. That is my biggest hurdle in software development. I can't ever seem to come up with an idea that I feel will be worth the time and resources to bring to life.
Some excellent ideas, but not enough time to develop them, and too risky or not obviously profitable enough for me to be able to quit full-time agency work (which would obviously be the goal). Ideas come easy, the kind that intersect with "potentially profitable within 6-12 months" are much rarer.
Yes! I definitely have that entrepreneurial burn inside of me but I haven't had any idea that I feel strongly about yet. I think I'm going to start trying to opening up my mind more and engaging in new things, reading about topics that maybe I wouldn't have before, etc.
I have a few solid ideas that I believe I could execute well, in a wide variety of industries. Mind you this is after purging many ideas that fail vetting. However, my limitation is lack of capital. I'm not well connected and wouldn't know where to begin to look for funds.
I have a few ideas but none I'm passionate enough about to work on. I don't want to go down the rabbit hole of building something people don't want again.<p>Btw, I'm not able to fill in the email field on your website. (Firefox on Windows)
Yes. I'm looking for a subtle idea, that doesn't necessarily make me millions, but keeps occupied and pays the rent. I have many ideas but they are too hard or need too much money to bootstrap.
My problem is too many ideas. They overwhelm me. I have started 18 companies. Most of them fail to take off. As I get older I have succeeded in fighting the idea-a-day syndrome.
Yes, because I'd prefer an idea that can be bootstrapped into a profitable company. No dependency on ad revenue. No stupid consumer app that goes big or bust.
Yes, it isn't something about actually ideas, it's that somehow I don't think there is a market for them, they seem to be just dumb ideas.
Can I suggest you use this forum as a way to test your ideas, publicise the book and get tons of real life examples<p>in short - how do I, with an idea, test it? How do I use AdWords, keyword search, mailchimp etc etc<p>Got a process - validate it here<p>(As I suspect you are)