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Comment by jfengel | Hacker News Reader

Is it really realistic to build something people "need"? Humanity survived millions of years without a single piece of software; it's unlikely that anything you write is ever going to be a "need".

People buy stuff they don't need all the time. Games and other entertainment are the very definition of "nice to have", and they're vast markets. Even business tools are usually not "needs" if all they do is improve an existing product.

It's incredibly hard to know what will attract people. Even if you know categorically that a thing will make their lives better, people often won't get it, and instead spend their money on something objectively useless.

It seems to be luck as much as anything else, being in the right place at the right time. It catches a "buzz" for whatever reason and becomes popular, or fails to and doesn't. Knowing it beforehand would be great, but nobody ever does.

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> Humanity survived millions of years without a single piece of software; it's unlikely that anything you write is ever going to be a "need".

I would argue that the software itself isn't the need, but rather a means of meeting the need.

Take Doordash for example. Humans have always needed to eat. Long ago, we met that need by each individual directly gathering food themselves. When a better solution came along - agriculture - we embraced it and largely dropped the previous one. Fast forward 12k years or so, and now we're able to have food prepared and brought to within a few feet of where we're sitting by tapping on a phone.

In other words, just because a problem has an existing solution doesn't mean it's not a viable target niche. If you can make a solution that's better for some population (and get it in front of those people) you have a product.

I would define "need" as per Reiss 16 Motives:

- Acceptance/Self-confidence - the need to be appreciated

- Curiosity, the need to gain knowledge

- Eating, the need for food - Family/Love, the need to take care of one’s offspring

- Honor, the need to be faithful to the customary values of an individual’s ethnic group, family or clan

- Idealism, the need for social justice

- Independence/Freedom, the need to be distinct and self-reliant

- Order, the need for prepared, established, and conventional environments

- Physical activity/Vitality, the need for work out of the body

- Power/Efficacy, the need for control of will

- Romance, the need for mating or sex

- Saving/Ownership, the need to accumulate something

- Social contact/Fun, the need for relationship with others

- Social status/Self-Importance, the need for social significance

- Tranquility/Safe, the need to be secure and protected

- Vengeance, the need to strike back against another person

But that only defines human needs, and not whether a specific app is a need and/or whether it’s just a nice to have.

I could make the best new social network, which addresses a need, but hardly anyone really needs another social network.

So how do I distinguish between a need or a nice to have within this context?

You actually answered the question in your statement above.

It has to be an unmet need. The key word being "un-met"

You said:

> "hardly anyone really needs another social network"

You're absolutely correct.

The first phase of social networks had a lot of early adoption for many different social networks circa 2003, because at that time the need was unmet.

Then the world settled on a winner, Facebook.

Now that's no longer an unmet need.

But in reality, there are limits to being able to predict a winner.

If that existed, starting a winning business would be easy.

We only have heuristics, no crystal ball.

Also, spotting a need is not the same as satisfying it.

It's why Steve Jobs could arrive late to the party and build a winner that leapfrogged the competition over and over again.

The process of getting from nice to have to need is called marketing.

I think that’s an oversimplification, that downplays the necessity of having an idea that’s not just a nice to have.

> Is it really realistic to build something people "need"?

I don’t know about B2C, but with B2B it’s fairly easy — just solve problems that cost them money, either in terms of actual money, time saved, or delivers new value.

If you can’t easily express the value a customer gets from your solution (especially if you have competition!), chances are you need to think again about the problem you’re solving.

If you're trying to run a business, then yes, it needs to be something people need, because you're asking people to give up something of value to them. Money and/or time. If you ask for something of value you have to provide something of value in return.

Of course, the need can be anything that people find valuable. It could be a product or a service or just a way to stay connected or entertainment. Whatever it is, it has to be something people "need" from a value perspective, if you are planning to make a business out of it.

Of course, you don't have to run a business. Many people do things out of their own interests that are never turned into businesses, and certainly humanity has been doing that for millenia. You don't have to turn it into a business. The points above are relevant to running a successful business.

I don't really understand your definition of need. You define a 'need' as anything that people find valuable, but I would classify 'nice to have' as also being things someone finds valuable.

How do you distinguish something that is a 'nice to have' and a 'need'?

If you sell to a business, your software makes a job go from needing 3 employees to 1 employee to do. You saved the business say $6000 per month. As long as your software cost less than $6000 per month, it helps the business be more profitable.

Selling to a person, to learn a new habit.. what is the dollar value to that? If a user cannot learn something on their own, that shows low commitment to that task. What then makes them open their wallet to commit to something else?

I think it's really hard to make money off bettering yourself, and really easy to make money selling to businesses. At least that is my view, and why I do B2B SAAS.

But the person I responded to used personal entertainment as an example of need.

Nice to have is a luxury - it doesn't solve any actual problem people have, it just make life a little bit nicer. Need is an actual value proposition - people are already spending time or money to do a thing that you can do better.

I think you're using the rigid definition of "need" like the bottom of the Maslow hierarchy, but in the business world "need" is more value driven, or in the B2C side closer to the top of the hierarchy.

That makes sense, but the examples the person I responded to used examples that don't fit with what you said.

> Is it really realistic to build something people "need"? Humanity survived millions of years without a single piece of software; it's unlikely that anything you write is ever going to be a "need".

Replace "need" with "desire" and suddenly it makes sense.

People have a desire to socialize (facebook), people have a desire to be heard (twitter), people have a desire to communicate (messenger apps, phones), people have a desire to travel (automotive, travel), people have a desire to be entertained (netflix et al). Etc. Etc.

You don't really 'need' any of it, but there is a very high demand, and thus a big market.

Need in the context of the quote was used as opposed to "want". I think the point was to drive home that people are less likely to pay for, and continue using, things that they "want" versus "need".

The problem is, needs (as prerequisite to survival) isn't really what is being described here. "Desire" doesnt quite sounds like the right term either, because it is semantically no different than a want.

Rather than looking at the customer's spectrum of desire, perhaps a better framing is fulfillment- does the app fulfill a gap in a person's abilities, or does it sate an idle fancy?

Facebook and twitter do both, I think, at different levels. Perhaps that is why they are so successful.

I think another lesson here is that the app was built to help people do something hard (build/change habits) and all the apps that are wildly successful are more oriented to reforcing easy, lazy, and bad behaviors (gossip, idle chatter, time-wasting, procrastination).

The people who really make up their minds to change habits don't need an app. They just do it.

Sure, this is true. In 500 BC I would have lived in a cave. But now I have a garage, it has a door, and one thing I need is an app that lets me open the door when I get back from cycling. Fortunately, there’s an app for that!

It doesn’t have to be a Need with a capital N. I had the same questions when I first encountered this advice, but I’ve since realized that it’s perfectly fine to address vague needs like the need for entertainment.

unless you target necessary industries niches e.g. banking, big pharma, etc.

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