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Comment by Mz | Hacker News Reader

I tend to do one of two things: Keep it alive on some back burner forever and ever and ever while feeling like some loser who never accomplishes anything or do a quick google, discover someone else is already doing it and has put way more into it than I ever would and ditch it as a likely time-waster.

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Just because someone else is doing it shouldn't be a reason to ditch it. In fact, it could validate your idea as it proves there is a market and if your idea is better and your vision greater you could have a success on your hands (just look at Wufoo for a recent example).

On the other hand if your enthusiasm for the idea isn't high enough then you should go ahead and ditch it.

<flake>

Yeah, well, the most recent thing I dreamed up as some possible money-maker was a numerology app to do the math part for you since I get annoyed by having to do it by hand, only it turns out there are already numerology apps and they have interpretation and stuff. Then I decided I probably didn't really want to do a numerology app, I just had fantasies of making a quick buck because my finances have been very stressful of late. What I really want to do is what I have been working on all along only the "getting well part" that my personal expertise is rooted in is still taking too much effin time/money/effort and continues to delay the "make some cool simulation to teach folks what I did/my mental model so they have some shot at replicating it" part. The actual "getting well" part is critical to doing this because it is what my knowledge is rooted in and it's unique knowledge but, hey, it's really annoying to be sick for 45 years as a means to have a unique product. Bleh.

Then after that I plan on getting rich with a comic.

</flake>

You're not stupid for creating something that already exists. I've "copied" sites before and have made decent money from them, even if the market was crowded or the idea was unoriginal. At the very least, its a learning experience.

The truth is your not going to come up with a brilliant idea and get rich, so STFU and start building something.

I think you have misunderstood me. I was poking fun at my belief in numerology, not suggesting I'm stupid or unoriginal. Most folks on boards like this one roll their eyes at things like numerology.

And I am working on stuff, though I am not at the "building something" (as in "writing code") stage. There is other groundwork that is being laid.

Take care.

Oh alright then, not sure I saw the self-deprecation as humor, but to each his own! Carry on good sir.

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