You’ve got an idea. Now what? | Hacker News Reader

You’ve got an idea. Now what?

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65 pointssammville15 comments

This is a great presentation, especially from slide 14 onward. Exactly the kind of practical advice entrepreneurial developers need to move towards a MVP. I wish there was more regarding how to set the stage before launching something (aside greyhat/blackhat techniques), i.e. having some eyeballs waiting for what you might be creating.

Start writing about the topic before you launch. Presumably if you're passionate enough about the space to spend N months slinging code you can at least write a few pages about it. (I need to be better at this.)

Something I've been thinking about lately: What if your product is merely a tool? Say, it's useful in solving a real problem, but it isn't central to any particular workflow. For example, OCR software. It can save massive amounts of time, but I can't imagine what I'd write on the topic. Am I just not being creative enough?

You are not being creative enough. Here's a list of blog post titles for you:

- OCR application(s) in forms - OCR application(s) in vehicle registration plates - OCR in archive digitization - OCR in business card scanning - OCR in mobile industry

With the simple formula of your product plus application fields you can generate hundreds of posts.

Why didn't you do this with AR? (Not being critical, just curious, because I remember you being a bit stealthy about AR pre-launch (of your demo, at least).)

Also, how would you respond to those that wouldn't want to do this for fear of "giving away their idea"?

Is just another case of being needlessly protective of an idea that is, in and of itself, fairly worthless? Or is the trick to write to about the problem generally and not your specific solution?

That's a really great prescriptive presentation. But it's really hard to actually get people to hear about your product.

Adwords are expensive. Does anyone have any ideas to share on getting your URL out there?

It depends on the business, but I have found that finding community forums that have an interest in your niche is a good place for an advert. Email the owner or webmaster and negotiate the rate.

If you are a good fit for the site, the owner and community will love the added benefit. Give a discount and it will be a feature, or value added, benefit to being part of the community, not an annoying advert.