I am wondering if there are other services out there like this. (Something free would always be nice).
Justin talked about the idea on the podcast he's hosting with Jason Roberts, Techzing live[1] and there's a discussion about Nugget on bootstrapped.fm[2]
[1] 298: TZ Discussion – Enter the Nugget: http://techzinglive.com/page/1590/298-tz-discussion-enter-th...
[2] http://discuss.bootstrapped.fm/t/introducing-nugget-we-send-...
[3] http://www.startupsfortherestofus.com/episodes/episode-297-h...
But Nugget isn't just offering ideas.
Nugget members are investing in a steady stream of software-solvable business opportunities that at least one person has expressed a desire to pay real money to have solved.
So, it's really about helping someone clear that first hurdle. Choosing an idea.
But not just any idea: a viable one.
Pick an idea that someone has already said they'd pay for, an idea that someone has taken the time to research and present to you in an objective way, showing you the market size, market growth rate, competition landscape, tech challenges, customer personas, and so forth.
The opportunities are sent out with quite a lot of thorough customer research, market research, competitive analysis, and tech insight to give members a fighting chance of deciding whether or not an idea is worth pursuing.
The vast majority of ideas we collect are rejected, but the ones that do get through the gauntlet are highly refined. Refined enough, at least, to let an entrepreneur jump in and start contacting potential customers and other first steps on the business validation journey.
So, by the time the nugget gets emailed out, it's no longer just an idle idea that someone may toss around over beers with friends, it's an outline of a business hypothesis with clear next steps of validation, next steps to attempt to make it a reality.
So just based on what our most successful customers are telling us they're loving, the analysis is the biggest value for them.
Customers keep mentioning that the amount of analysis we're adding to these ideas is really transformative. An idea that seems on the surface to be a non-starter can really start to look viable for the right entrepreneur (there was a nugget in the quilting niche that comes to mind that really surprised everyone).
No, not every idea is right for every entrepreneur. There's a concept of product-founder-fit at work here, where an entrepreneur may have to watch a few weeks of nuggets roll by before spotting one that really seems perfect. But we've seen it happen for a lot of our customers.
The community/discussion board is really a big mastermind session, for lack of a better description. Even as small as it is right now 40 or so days after launch, it's become a place where we support each other, there are accountability threads where people report on their progress as they're actively pursuing nuggets, people brainstorming tactics, challenging one another. We've even seen a couple teams of co-founders form around these ideas. There is even an idea pitch area where entrepreneurs kick around ideas they bring in themselves; not nuggets, but their own ideas.
So, that's a bit about the value of the community.
A third value Nugget offers at the moment for members is a monthly workshop. This will, undoubtedly grow and change as time goes by. The first workshop in July was just a simple question and answer session where we kicked around ideas to help a couple members move forward in their validation of their chosen nuggets.
No, Nugget is probably not the right fit for everyone, but we're really striving to add value, to not just be a site that peddles ideas. We're focusing on helping entrepreneurs dig in, clear the hurdles that happen along the way, and execute their chosen business idea.
Anyway, we're hoping this proves to be of some value to entrepreneurs!
Another one is opportunityoverload.com. Not as focused as nugget, but similar. More broad/industry-wide insights.