Ask HN: Finding an idea of your own to work on as a programmer | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Finding an idea of your own to work on as a programmer

35 pointsaworkerbee30 comments

Hi HN.

I'm the only web dev at a small company. Over the past year the software that I've created has grown to generate 6 figures in monthly revenue. I'm not the only one who works in the company, there are other people doing sales + business things but I've made the product.

It hurts me that I'm unable to come up with an idea of my own to put my labor to that I can then sell without having someone lay it out for me. I feel dumb, to be honest.

So my question is, how the hell do you come up with an idea of your own that you can sell? The business I work for isn't revolutionary or anything, but the owners have decades of experience in it so they know the market.

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> The business I work for isn't revolutionary or anything, but the owners have decades of experience in it so they know the market.

THAT'S how.

Or at least, that is one of the more reliable ways.

Of course, a plan that starts out "First, spend a couple of decades learning everything about a particular niche market... " isn't, by definition, a recipe for overnight success.

Nevertheless, you will have to become some sort of expert in your chosen market, or someone who is one might eat your lunch.

If you're creating a new market or category, you are by definition the expert, but that doesn't mean you will succeed, because perhaps you're an expert in a market that doesn't really exist, or is too small or too hard to monetize to support your business model.

You can start with a problem you see (or think you see) 'in the wild' (sharing files with friends is too hard), or you can start with a particular type of user (people who have an extra room to rent out), or you can start with an industry (eg. home landscaping).

But you almost certainly shouldn't start with the solution (although as technologists we are often sorely tempted), no matter how cool, except in the case where the user is themselves a technologist.

Anyway, starting with one of "I want to solve $PROBLEM" or "I want to help people like $NAME" or "I want to create solutions for $INDUSTRY" and you won't go too far wrong as long as you keep examining and testing your assumptions.

Thank you the thoughtful reply. I think "starting with the solution", or the end might be my problem. Not in terms of technology, but I think: how can I make the most money with the littlest effort, with the best chance of success, in order to provide a secure existence for myself, my parents.

"I want to solve $PROBLEM" isn't a root desire for me, I just want to make money. You've given me some things to think about!

Making money is the outcome when you build and sell something of value to others. If you don’t find a problem to solve or a way to deliver value to others they won’t be willing to pay you enough to generate a profit.

As per the comment above you should not underestimate the value gained from experience. Having a deep understanding of a domain or market gives you the ability to see a problem, build a solution then clearly position and articulate why your solution is valuable.

If you purely focus on trying to make money for yourself you are really going to struggle to generate any significant money. You might be able to find a niche here or there but without understanding your customers and users you are unlikely to retain them or grow your user base.

Just my perspective!

If he problem you are trying to solve is the precariousness of existence, there are other avenues to explore other than $MAKE_MONEY_FAST, and most any solution you find may lend itself to being monetized.

Sometimes, the problem (at the margin, anyway) isn't lack of money or expenses that are too large per-se but irregularity of income and-or irregularity of expenses. There may be solutions you can devise to smooth things out.

There may be money-saving solutions you can devise that could be marketed to a wider audience.

There may be income generating solutions (eg. marketing, adtech, and similar) that you can sell to businesses.

Anyway, try to dig a little deeper into what motivates you, and see if there is a problem there that you can make into a passion.

I'm not here to say "it won't happen for you" but I am here to say, it may not matter: It's not inherently wrong to not be able to see how to make a space in the market for an idea.

If it feels like it's a problem, you maybe have something to hang a hat on there. Why is this drive so important to you? Is it about financial independence? Is it about some sense of achievement?

Business smarts to design a product or service are a skill which can be learned btw. Seriously, you can learn how to do that kind of thing. Some of the methods are a bit 7-steps but the fundamentals are, to identify a need, fulfilled or not, and work out how to do it, better. Mostly the sub-steps are about breaking it down.

Pivot, is just fancy word for "changing your mind in the light of some experience"

Agile, PM, Lifecycle, they're all acquirable skills.

The whole black skivvy, reveal on stage, Hiring Jony as a killer designer, getting the best aluminium blocks to shave down to your bespoke cigar-holder-lighter, thats kind-of a side issue. Its what we are seduced by, but there had to be an underlying value proposition.

And you know what? Everyone likes Woz. He was not very good at selling. He is however, a genuinely nice guy (from what I am told) and he is NOT a giant, narccissistic ass-hat.

> It hurts me that I'm unable to come up with an idea of my own to put my labor to that I can then sell without having someone lay it out for me. I feel dumb, to be honest.

First question, why are you even trying to find a unique idea? I thought the same way until I was asked by a mentor,

"Look at your desk, how many pens do you have? How many of those are different brands? If they can survive in such a crowded market, why can't you?"

What he meant was that you don't need a unique idea, and thinking so is a fallacy when most businesses are not unique. Clone a business you like and start competing. Competition is good because it actually validates the market. I'd be worrying there weren't any competition actually.

What worked for me (oversimplified): 1. Find an interest you're excited about and/or spend a lot of money in (climbing). It'll be easier creating something of value for yourself. 2. Write down what could be improved there. Problems you run into. Solutions you use that suck, or chose not to use because they suck. Build your problem understanding. (developing climbing technique and staying hyped) 3. Find others who're interested in this space. (fellow climbers) 4. Build your problem understanding. Ask them what is challenging, frustrating or annoying for them as climbers. Ask them what they've tried or are trying and what they like/dislike. 5. Come up with a solution. Make something super small. A landing page that explains your idea. A brochure. Something ideally that you can make within a week. A day's even better. 6. Show your solution to people you'd consider customers. Ask them for feedback about how they think this could solve their problem. (for me I came up with an online program, designed a landing page with google sheets and showed it as if it was an actual website. Climbers gave me feedback that they wanted to know more about the practical way of learning - exercises, etc) 7. Repeat step 5&6 until you have confidence this is worth building. Then you've got your idea you're asking for. Congrats. You've ended up at the hardest point: figuring out how to execute on your idea and get all the parts right and figuring out how to sell and market it.

Something is perplexing about the request. Most of us have far more ideas than we can execute on. Basically though, if you're at a company in a particular market, identify the pain points that potential customers in that market have, then figure out how to fix them.

>>Most of us have far more ideas than we can execute on

Hmm - not sure about the 'most of us' bit...

Coming up with a viable business idea is a lot harder then coding it for me.

Viable depends on your resources and execution capacity so most people building their ideas don't really have a viable business idea.

- Keep an idea notebook somewhere handy and write down every idea you think of, even if it’s incomplete or far-fetched.

- As the only developer working on a software project that generates 6 figures in monthly revenue, yeah, you’re not going to have much time to iterate on your own idea on the side. Good ideas take time to develop. Consider a sabbatical, or just quit. You can get another job later without much trouble.

- Copy someone else’s idea, add missing features and put a better UX on it.

Finding unique ideas that make money is difficult. But most problems that exist don't require some insane intellectual insights. One problem is that developers don't have experience of other sectors apart from the IT field. Dive deep into stuff like Agriculture, Logistics or any other sector and you will see unique problems that can possibly be solved by unique solutions. But as another user said the market is big enough that you don't always need unique ideas.

Another little trick you can apply is searching for new startups in different countries. Like maybe some early stage startup in Singapore, Hong Kong or Israel might be solving something that might work in your country as well. You can definitely get unique 'ideas' to get inspired using this.

I think "come up with an idea" is a wrong way to approach this. How many ideas did you test? I suggest to treat this as "fishing". People don't get "wonderful business ideas", people get some ideas and test them. Because how good an idea is depends on many factors and it can be hard for anyone to judge.

So I am pretty sure you are able to come up with ideas. Perhaps you just see them as "bad" and don't even try to test them. I would suggest you to find the most promising idea and think how you could test whether this is a problem other's might have. As you noticed, I used "problem" here, because ultimately you want to solve a problem.

If you struggle with finding problems, try noticing your own inconveniences. Imagine that you have magic abilities to fix everything, what would you change in your own life?

> ... but the owners have decades of experience in it so they know the market.

This statement is the key of finding idea. Pick a market, Immerse yourself in the market, consume everything about the market, talk to everyone in the market, analyze everyone in the market ...

I have been in the same situation for a long time. And I joined a new company and I found out a big problem I need to deal every week/week. While I've tried to solve it by myself my team is also impacted. The whole company is impacted by it. Then I've done user research to users outside of my company and then I started to build a little product by myself. I'm at the beginning of journey but it is really exciting.

I'm sure there are problems you need to handle every day or week but maybe there are not important enough, or you have already found a solution/hack to solve this issue.

Don’t. If you just spend your years learning and trying things, you will naturally find something that doesn’t exist that you need to exist. If some time goes by and you still can’t stop thinking about it, and it still doesn’t exist, that’s your idea. If the idea doesn’t stick and doesn’t keep pulling at you, it’s not the right one. If you force it, you’ll come up with a hundred ideas you don’t care enough about. If you don’t care enough about the idea, you won’t be able to spend years pursuing it

The question itself is flawed - would recommend rewriting (and adjusting your mindset for this to) “Finding a problem of your own....” - this mindset change should (hopefully) set you on a path of solving problems you experience daily, weekly, or monthly - IMHO solutions you build from this POV will be much more personally rewarding and open up entrepreneurial pathways should you want to follow that route.

> So my question is, how the hell do you come up with an idea of your own that you can sell?

If you can't come up with original ideas, copy existing ones and make them better. Get some experience with that and eventually you'll come up with something original.

I think you are in the right path; making rich others doesn't make much sense.

Your mistake is that you think it's the software that makes the money. It's not. It's the business that makes the money. You meanwhile are searching for "software idea" to make money instead of "business idea" that be driven by software.

"How To Get and Test Startup Ideas" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vDXkpJw16os.

I keep a list of problems when I notice them.

Find an entrepreneur and ask him how a software can solve his problem. Filter out the problems that are not so relevant to him, that he's going to pay for a solution. Repeat this process as much as you can and try to find your niche. And go for it.

Or her...

Sorry, I don't have any advice for you.

I'm just curious about your work situation. Being the solo dev at a small company sounds interesting. What has your experience been like? And if you don't mind sharing, how did you find your job?

Sure, I connected with a woman on a job board at the beginning of last year, made an MVP for her, then transitioned to a full-time job after that. My experience has been good overall, my experience freelancing was stressful which was why I stopped. I get paid low by HN standards (low 100,xxx) but I'm not micromanaged, can make tech decisions, I didn't have to pass a coding test (which I could never do anyways!).

Downside is that I'm the only tech person, there's no one to bounce ideas back and forth with.

See if you can get some equity. That could solve your problem and it will keep you focused so it's in their interest to do that. This is why equity is useful as an employer. Whether that equity is worth a lot will depend on the plans for the company and the market opportunity.

In terms of your other question.. Paul Graham discusses it on his website but you have to make something people want. He also has an essay on how to get ideas. YC also publishes categories of startups they are interested in funding.

You don't even have to be original. There are 5+ ways to order take out or get groceries delivered.

Freelance and consulting can help you survey a broad spectrum of the market. If you are good, people will eventually come to you. Joining a big consultancy like McKinsey etc gives you insight into big company and big govt problems.

The other thing YC advises is to asks your customers what they want. Really listen to them.

In Sales you solve customer problems by asking "why are they asking me this question".

Would you be interested in collaborating with someone who has an idea and is on the business side of things? You can always add onto others ideas when working together.

I’d be interested in collaborating if you are.

Sure, I'm open to talking about it, and seeing if we can make something work.

I made an email: aworkerbeehn @ protonmail.com

DM’d

im going to answer a different question to give you a broader perspective since you indicated that your driving motivation is finances (not a bad thing).

since its a small company and you’re the only dev, have you considered negotiating with the owners to become CTO and ask for partial ownership? i think the leverage you have is tremendous and you haven’t realized it yet.

I have a vast and ever growing number of ideas.

So many, mostly probably bad ideas.

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