From a list of possible projects, how do you choose? | Hacker News Reader

From a list of possible projects, how do you choose?

10 pointsTichy20 comments

I guess I am not the only one who has an ever growing list of ideas for possible projects (and a lot of half-finished ones).

So how do you decide which of your projects to actually work on?

I am a specialist for reaching a state of undecidability, as I try to weigh the differing aspects. And yet, the replies to my question from yesterday ("proving commitment") made me realize that I still don't know which project I am really in love with.

Possible aspects:

- earning potential vs effort

- friends reactions to the idea

- opportunity to employ interesting technology (could be more fun, career advancing)

- usefulness

- match to my skills

- decision matrix

- gut feeling

- already started (should I finish my unfinished projects first?)

- pure fun/enthusiasm (might not last)

- pendulum (if the purpose is to find my hearts desire, it might actually work?)

- throw darts (maybe best, if I recall the recent articles on long decision making processes lowering satisfaction)

- friends who would cooperate (I used this several times, thinking it's mandatory not to go it alone, but it didn't work out so well for me - difficult to find someone to share the same vision and enthusiasm)

- ?

Learn more about how to select ideas. Not only is this a good thing to do, it will help you out once you get started on something. Seriously. You should be able to take a list of twelve ideas and take both sides of the do/don't do argument. What's the market size? What's market entry like? How close can you get to the customer? Are you selling information or entertainment? (It's all info, yes, but people buy some apps based on unique data, some on the way it makes them feel) What's your team-forming potential? Is this something that just sounds good on a napkin, or when it is implemented is there really core value for the consumer there? etc.

There are lots more questions. You don't have to score high on all of these to have a winner, but you DO need to intimately know the reasons why your idea might suck before you take it up. You can't overcome weaknesses you don't understand that you have. And BTW, I would rank "How close are you to the customer" and "how big is the market size" pretty close to the top of the list. This is why, for instance, we see college kids writing apps that other college kids pick up and play with -- a huge market that they are very close to.

I've found that enthusiasm/passion can come after you analyze the heck out of a project just as easily as it can come randomly speculating about good business ideas. In fact, an idea that you've tried and tried to kill but couldn't? Combine that with some good old hard work and a skeptical eye and you'll be a million times more enthusiastic than somebody with no skin in the game.

If you have to ask, I'd guess none of them. I'm being serious - I don't really think you have so many great ideas that you can't decide between them. You might have good ideas but if you had even one great idea, you'd be so energized about it that you'd want to do nothing else.

Very few successes, in my opinion, were really about a great idea. (Google, Microsoft, Apple, a few others I'm sure.) Cracking into that market is stupid hard.

You're better off taking a good idea that you can actually do, and doing it better than anyone else. Passion helps with that. It also helps to find a problem where the existing solutions are all similar and not very good. Flickr, del.icio.us, Viaweb, and Mozilla all seem to me to have done well playing this angle.

I had a teacher in high school who gave us some great advice for picking a career, and it applies to this question, too.

Make a list of your top 5 things that you'd really love to do, that would excite you and be fun. Then pick the one that makes the most money, and chase it relentlessly. If you don't have a list of 5 yet, dabble until you do.

If you try to look for your one magic idea that's going to make you happy and rich, you'll never find it. Happiness is fuzzy -- any of those top 5 ideas will probably do. So pick the one that makes the most money, because that's the one that's sustainable.

--

Earning potential vs effort? Not quite. You'll spend 100% of your effort on it, or maybe a little more. The goal is to maximize the earning potential of the effort that you have to spend. An easy execution with a low earning potential is a great hobby, but not a business. An idea which earns nothing unless you spend double the effort that you have is doomed to failure.

Friends' reactions to the idea are worse than useless. Your friends' are incented to make you feel good; but what you need is a dose of pessimism about the challenges you'll face. Strangers would be better, since they don't care about you.

Pursuing interesting technology is a fine hobby. But it's not a business.

Good ideas really are a dime a dozen. Don't wait for your One Original Idea. Pick a niche you can win, and win it. Winning adds to fun and enthusiasm.

If you really can't decide, you can always go work for someone else.

"Your friends' are incented to make you feel good"

I guess that means if my friends reactions are not very enthusiastic, my idea is really crap :-( Then again, a certain amount of stubbornness is also an entrepreneurial trait, I think?

I would go for the earning potential. I see myself doing consistenly more interesting/complicated stuff, but I think I would be much better off if I would do more lucrative boring stuff!

my answer: Enthusiasm/Passion.

suggestion: your question could be better answered through a poll.

I agree. Passion is the best force. And I think you are passionate for two or more ideas, then you picks one that makes some money.

I'd probably go with my "gut feeling" on what I felt would be the most fun to work on, most rewarding at the end, and how much work is involved.

Ultimately, going with the gut feeling will always be a better determiner of success than thinking things through with your head.

Marketability.

Choose the one for which you either: know particular people that will be very interested in it and will definitely use it, or have a very good strategy for getting lots of people to use it.

solving a problem you have

I like this suggestion a lot. Already I can throw out several ideas. Actually several projects evolve around things I need, but I think I can sort them by the hierarchy of needs. There is one I hope will help me fix my health issues, so that should probably have first priority.

solving a problem you have and have a passion for (hat tip to yangyang)

solving a problem you have and have a passion for and is a problem that lots of other people have too

solving a problem you have and have a passion for and is a problem that lots of other people have too and are willing to pay (attention|$$) to solve.

Gut feeling

Money first and foremost.

Passion and motivation to love and accomplish what you do.

But money should be the force behind your motivation.

I can't agree with this.

First of all, there are other elements of building a successful project that can be just as rewarding and satisfying as making a buck. Perhaps, the project is some type of "resume builder" which helps you along your way to making the big payoff later on down in life.

Secondly, you can never know if a project is going to pay off in the end anyway. So I say work on the project that you would enjoy the most, and you never know, it could be the big payoff. Take Craigslist (to cite an overused example). He never knew his email list would turn into a website and make him phenomenally rich!

Resume builders are fine hobbies. But crappy businesses.

you can never know if a project is going to pay off in the end

If we demanded perfection, we'd be left with math and The White Album. While you can't know, you can estimate well enough to decide. Do people with money have this problem? Are the existing solutions flawed? Can I build a better one? If you just got 3 yesses, it's got $ inside.

it depends upon whether or not you're expecting your livelihood from your ideas ... if you are making money from other sources then you must go with an idea that makes you passionate and has a huge market.

Passion will keep you going and huge market will make you some money (one day) if your product is good - and your product will be definitely good if you're passionate about it, it may take little longer though.

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