Ask HN: How to pick between 2 amazing ideas? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: How to pick between 2 amazing ideas?

9 pointskeiferski20 comments

Let’s say you’ve got two really, really great ideas. I know that “ideas don’t matter” and that “your idea might not be as good as you think it is,” but, for the sake of this thought experiment, assume the opposite is true. Both ideas are amazing and will change the world in mind-boggling ways. More importantly, you are completely capable of executing on both of them, and neither is super complex or overly difficult; it’s merely a question of which to work on.

How do you pick one? Or, preferably, how do you (successfully) start both simultaneously? Is it possible?

Seeing that many startups are bootstrapped, also assume that you have to work on the startup(s) alone or with a small team until launch and for at least 3 months afterword. IE, you can’t hire a bunch of people to do the work for you, at least at the beginning.

Some possible lines of thought:

  Which has a bigger market? Which will impact more people? 
  Which will make more money?

+ Add your own.

Well, you hit my big one: which one will make money.

Which one solves an actual problem that is already being experienced by people who want it solved? Related to which will make money.

Which market can I reach effectively? i.e., I have no way of marketing to Hospital Administrators without big cash infusions to pay salespeople.

Which market is growing? If both, which is growing faster?

Which ones have visible niches that I can carve out a home in?

Try a simple answer: "Which one would you use?" Answering this helps you determine which one you're most passionate about as well as a foundation for looking into a user-base.

If you would use both of them (which is likely the case), ask your self "Which one solves a greater pain in your life?"

I totally agree with this and if I had to choose between two ideas.

Which can you get to the point of launching the fastest?

That's a good thought. Maybe the plan should be to launch one quickly, get traction, then hire people to help you with the nitty-gritty while you slowly start working on the second idea.

Running one business is incredibly hard, I think it would be virtually impossible to do two well. I launched my new venture once I had management in place to run my first company. An 8 month old company needs the vision and the culture of the founder.

Yes. If one will take you, say, 3 months and the other 8 months, then the choice is easy, do the quick one.

If they're similar in terms of how hard/how long it'll take, you'll need to share some more detail here (else we get a really long IF ELSE tree.)

Is one revenue based (ie. Saas) and the other audience based (ie. Facebook)?

Is one in a competitive field and the other not?

1. They both roughly have similar timeframes.

2. One targets entrepreneurs, while the other targets virtually everyone (consumer-based.) The former is SaaS, while the latter is free to start but costs more to remove ads/add features. It doesn't necessarily need a lot of users to be successful (not something like Facebook) but the experience of the site is better with more people.

3. Both have virtually no competition and solve significant problems.

Sorry for being so sneaky and vague about it, but there's nothing out there like either of these ideas, so I'm a bit hesitant to broadcast on a savvy community like HN.

The former sounds like you have a clearly defined market and revenue model and need fewer users and less user engagement to succeed.

Unless you've invested large amounts of time in and/or have a greater interest in persisting with the other one, it sounds like the SaaS option wins.

Take the one that's narrower. In your case, the one that targets entrepreneurs, not the one that targets "everyone". Narrow is good.

you should probably just tell us what the ideas are. The likelihood of anyone chasing after your great idea instead of their own 10 great ideas is virtually zero.

I selected my idea (out of lots of great ideas) based on the fact that it 1) didnt require much technology to implement 2) had decent market based barriers to entry if successful 3) established revenue model 4) aligned with my interest in games 5) good potential for large amount of revenue, but would do fine at smaller levels of revenue 6) Would have a high revenue/employee # so I wouldnt have to have too many employees

I would, but:

a) there's nothing that solves either of these problems

b) they aren't new problems and have been around forever

c) technically, they wouldn't be very difficult to implement (they aren't technical solutions to these problems).

I've talked to multiple people offline about both ideas, so I'm very certain that they are good and will work. I've been working on the one for about 5 months now, so this isn't "just an idea". I'd just rather not broadcast them to HN when I'm months away from launching either one.

"I've been working on the one for about 5 months now" -> choose that one, that's easy. Why would you throw away that work?

Well, mostly because the newer idea could possibly be more worth pursuing.

Which of the ideas do you already have potential paying customers?

Ask around, pitch both of the ideas and find out which one people are more inclined to hand their credit card details over.

Working on two different ideas with different target markets simultaneously is a recipe for disaster. Facing the challenges of a single bootstrapped start up is hard enough.

In the words of Gary Vaynerchuk: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WxnT4nuxfes

The one you are more likely to finish.

the biggest issue usually between idea and execution is locating and actually reaching the market cost effectively and in a timely manner.

Suppose your product is for x people who like y.

Good. You have an Ideal Customer Profile.

Then you say, they will need my product when they do z. Those are the triggers. Meaning person has problem and knowledges problem and is actively looking for solution and at the set of a trigger they will do this.

So that now moves us into demand harvesting stage caused by a trigger (not demand generation which is missionary convincing a person they have a problem).

All good. Now all that was easy. The real hard part is reach. How will you find these folks?

Google is not enough. How will you access the hubs, the well connected early adopters to try your product/service and do word of marketing/referral for you for free?

I find in most of my sales jobs, reach is always the issue. Marketing is usually clueless. So I need to usually figure out clever ways to identify and reach this market.

Example from a recent consulting job. Mechanic wants to focus on Minivans since they are constantly used and constantly need repairs. Ok who drives minivans: moms.

Ok which moms will be hubs early adopters? Moms that are on committees that will tell others so that will we will get word of mouth.

How to we do reach these moms - through their hair stylists. What. Huh.

To go after your hub early adopters you need to find the people they will listen to and trust.

These high influential moms that will tell other moms are usually in charge of groups and constantly need to maintain their appearance. They regularly go to salons. They trust their hair stylist more than they trust their husbands.

Great: We designed a campaign to have hair stylists at select locations to try the mechanic's services at a deep discount. Immediately after trying our services, we gave them discounted coupons to give to 1 or 2 of their clients.

Then the these high connected (more like switches than hubs since they become to a number of groups) early adopter moms a chance to try us and subsequently tell their friends. Essentially the clairol commercial tactic with a twist.

Hope this helps. No time to make it shorter.

tldr: pick the one that easiest to reach the well-defined market that can purchase your product/service. And that has easily identifiable highly connected early adopters. This will make marketing easier and actually doable.

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