I remember clearly that when I first built a "site" in Front Page (maybe in '98) I thought to myself: "ONCE I REALLY LEARN THIS I CAN DO ANYTHING!!!111".<p>15 years later and I'm a web developer with a lot of free time looking for any opportunities, and I just can't get myself to build anything, because every single idea seems to be already done.<p>I know people used to say this decades ago, and I know there's always room for innovation, or improving existing things, etc. But I just can't get motivated enough.<p>Any tips for getting excited about projects, knowing that there's a 99% chance the thing you are working on have already been built or is currently being developed in a much better way for at least other 30 companies?<p>Any books or articles related to this are welcome.
I recommend you take a look at Rob Walling's blog: <a href="http://www.softwarebyrob.com/" rel="nofollow">http://www.softwarebyrob.com/</a><p>He also runs the Microprenuer Academy that focuses on helping and promoting one-person startups. His key advice: focus on a niche industry or audience.<p>For example, a few years ago I had this great idea of building a task management app. I quickly discovered there were dozens of them, Asana, Producteev, Flow, Trello, etc. Using his advice, I could have focused developing a task app for a particular industry, say industrial engineers, architects, investment advisors, etc. His point being that specific industries have very specific needs, and one-size-fit-all, general purpose apps rarely targets those needs.<p>Bottom line, think about what kinds of app you'd enjoy building, social media, news, productivity app, game, whatever, then cross breed it with some underserved market.
Example: LinkedIn + Oil and Gas industry = oilpro.com