4 ms·

Ask HN: I find all every single idea I come up with is already tried by someone

49 points by newsingletoned 11y ago

I have background in software development. At job I mostly do ETL and work with Hadoop ecosystem. I am trying to learn web development starting with a simple framework to become full stack developer. My intent is also to finish a side project and start a side income. However, every single idea I am coming up is already tried by someone else. How do I differentiate my development work if - 1. Someone is already offering same product and has paid customers ? 2. If market is thinly spread is it worth developing another product in same niche ? 3. Most of the product that I see now-a-days are selling data. Many SaaS companies I see have grabbed data and selling it one form or another with monthly / yearly plans and give access to API. What you think of this model of selling data ? Is it worth pursuing given that there are already N players competing for customers. Thanks !

patio11 11y ago
You can still finish a project and earn income with an idea that has been "done before." That describes a super-majority of the entire economy. "Being a dentist" has been done before. Most of my friends have SaaS products for which there exist other options; that is in no way a total impediment to getting to, say, $10k a month in sales. (In fact, if you ran down a list of the fairly lucrative small software businesses I know, the ones with the highest numbers are the ones with the most competition -- probably because they're competing in big markets. Email marketing is a lot bigger than e.g. bingo card generation -- my buddies doing email marketing do pretty well for themselves with market shares which are probably not tenths-of-a-percentage-point.)
- newsingletoned 11y ago
  Hi Patrick ! Thanks for the reply. As someone who is starting first time in SaaS field what is your advice for making product salable. Should I try to differentiate myself by adding more features or should I go with standard offering and compete on price ? Thank you !
  - sebg 11y ago
    Compete on providing the most value you can with the smallest feature set possible. Really figure out what the core issue is and then solve that. That's what will make a product salable - that you fix the most important problem for the person who is looking at your offering. Standard offerings or price don't matter if you don't solve their most pressing problem. Same the other way, if you solve their most pressing problem a business will pay way more than you as an individual would consider feasible.
  - patio11 11y ago
    Don't compete on price, unless it is by raising it. You do not have to compete on number of features to make your product saleable. Most customers do not buy most products because they have more features than competitors. There's some minimum quanta of utility your product has to have. Almost all SaaS entrepreneurs overshoot on that -- by lots in many cases. I'd suggest, broadly, finding a take on the market that your competitors don't have yet, whether that is a use case, a customer group, a channel, etc that they haven't utilized, and build that. Strong recommendations that you a) try soliciting customers for your eventual software before it exists to see whether you're able to find customers for it, b) not build any software you cannot find customers for, and c) pick something with a price point which gets you to at least $50 a month and hopefully as far above that as you can. This is from ~10 years of experiencing the brutal, brutal math of trying to count to $10k in increments of $30.
    - shubhamjain 11y ago
      > You do not have to compete on number of features to make your product saleable. Most customers do not buy most products because they have more features than competitors. Although it seems logical that people would be willing to pay for something that provides value but won't they (at least try) to see similar alternative before they start paying? I listened to a podcast by Rob Walling, in which he speaks how there was considerable churn because people weren't able to differentiate his product (Drip) from Mailchimp. Surely, I can't put myself in the shoes of a non-technical buyer, but first thought seems to suggest me that if you start building a A/B testing software for a niche segment, first question you will have to answer to potential customers is how is it different from VWO or Optimizely.
sebg 11y ago
If you want a side income then your goal is to find people who are already paying for things you can build. If every single idea you come up with is already tried by someone else, then it means you are coming up with ideas for which people are already paying for. That's fantastic! To your question 1) If someone is already offering same product and paid customers - ask yourself - do they have 100% market share? If not, whom are they missing? Can you reach those whom they are missing? To your question 2) If you just came up with the idea, how do you know the market is thinly spread? To your question 3) Those are a very tiny tiny tiny tiny slice of all the majority of SaaS products. Is this something you are well and truly interested in? If not, go back to your question 1 and figure out who has the most customers. worth watching -> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CDXJ6bMkMY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CDXJ6bMkMY
seanwilson 11y ago
It's very rare you're going to come up with a never been done before idea and even if you do it can probably be quickly copied so you'd be back where you started. Get to know your competition and draw up a table on their pros and cons, and pricing. You may be able to find a niche that hasn't been explored e.g. different target audience, easier to use or more advanced, different platform, alternative pricing, different API, better integrations.
abalashov 11y ago
I am not an especially creative "idea man" or any kind of "visionary"; my sole strength has always been in improved execution or better implementation of things that already exist. This even applies when I conjure solutions to my own problems, as one is often advised to do when mining for business ideas. All I ever want is a better X. I think that suitably describes the vast majority of the economy, and leads to no particular poverty of entrepreneurial strategies. Moreover, it seems that markets are almost always bigger than technical guys think. If everything were as tired, old, and hackneyed as my pessimistic take suggests, almost everything my customers offer would be completely unmarketable and I'd have no business. So, relax. Almost nothing in life is truly original. Just think of something genuinely useful and build it. :-)
manomano 11y ago
When Starbucks started their idea (to serve coffee) it was not a new or unique idea. They excelled because of their execution (quality, customer service, branding, customer experience, etc). I think a common mistake people make is believing their business idea has to be super unique. Instead, research businesses which are growing and do what they do. Are baseball hats popular in your area? Create an online baseball hat e-commerce website and focus on execution.
k__ 11y ago
I know a bunch of companies who make money with old ideas. Most of them just appeal to special kind of customers. Some only target small businesses, some only consumers, some only big corps. This alone is often enough to differentiate from others.
ignasl 11y ago
Concentrate on execution of the best idea you have. 1. Someone is already offering same product and has paid customers? Do better product and better marketing and you will succeed :)
hacknat 11y ago
I'm going to offer a different take on your problem than the traditional response from this community, which is, "It doesn't matter, it's about execution." This is a perfectly valid answer, but there's another valid answer as well, and I thought I'd throw it out there in the interest of completeness and in case you're interested in it as a viable alternative. Original and good ideas come from becoming an expert in something or by learning about something that is on the bleeding edge. By definition lots of people are coming up with SaaS solutions for AWS, etc, because it is absolutely not bleeding edge anymore. Let me be clear, this doesn't mean you have to be a technical wizard (though sometimes it does). Uber sounds like an obvious idea now, requiring little technical wizardry (at least to get the idea going). However, in 2009 it was probably only obvious to the few people who were at the intersection of understanding the just-launched App Store and what technologies were going to be ubiquitous in smart phones (and that smart phones would become ubiquitous). Other ideas do require a good deal of technical wizardry to be on the forefront of. Wrapping containers in an easily understandable cli and making them mutable through a secure daemon API required a lot of technical acumen to accomplish. Thus we have Docker. Notice that the more technically challenging project in my examples (probably) resulted in less financial reward for its creator(s). However I'd guess the creators of Docker enjoyed building what they built and are doing fine, financially speaking. Go out and play with something that interests you and see what comes of it. If you stick to it you'll have fun and probably make money along the way. Maybe you'll become a billionaire (though, it often seems, to me, to be more trouble than it's worth) or maybe you'll just be able to sustain yourself doing something that you love.
newsingletoned 11y ago
@All - Thanks everyone. I definitely found new outlook and will give my best shot.
neltnerb 11y ago
Optimistic: If they already have the same product and paid customers, learn everything you possibly can tease out of why they do it the way they do it. They are almost guaranteed to not be dumb, or at least that's the attitude you should take. Why did they choose the niche and approach they did? Is there a differentiation that won't be a regression from what they offer for at least some subset of the customers? Assuming it makes it worse for some and better for others, are the numbers of "betters" a big enough market to focus on as a niche? As long as you're not searching for VC funding and okay with being a small fry, that seems low enough risk to try out at least... Personal: I hate companies that sell my data, it's almost always obvious immediately, and while I still make the tradeoff sometimes, it's rare. Purely from a personal preference standpoint... can you try just charging for something worth paying for? More enterprise, less bottom of the bucket deal seekers? Are your customers businesses are or individuals? Can you target businesses instead? I think they're way easier to come to a lucrative accommodation with with minimal sales effort. Maybe try a freemium model instead, or one with very low entry fees to try it out before normal monthly fees arrive? Sorry, this might be unrealistic and old school for Web 3.0 startups... I work in chemicals so obviously my perspective is skewed.
sharemywin 11y ago
put up a landing page with 3 bullets for benefits and features, you may think customer want. Add a link to a free trial form. figure out your cost per lead. Now you have a starting point for business. Email them and tell them your working on new version and when its complete you'll let them try it. try a couple variations on bullet points until you find the features most import to your potential users.

patio11 11y ago

You can still finish a project and earn income with an idea that has been "done before." That describes a super-majority of the entire economy. "Being a dentist" has been done before. Most of my friends have SaaS products for which there exist other options; that is in no way a total impediment to getting to, say, $10k a month in sales. (In fact, if you ran down a list of the fairly lucrative small software businesses I know, the ones with the highest numbers are the ones with the most competition -- probably because they're competing in big markets. Email marketing is a lot bigger than e.g. bingo card generation -- my buddies doing email marketing do pretty well for themselves with market shares which are probably not tenths-of-a-percentage-point.)

newsingletoned 11y ago
Hi Patrick ! Thanks for the reply. As someone who is starting first time in SaaS field what is your advice for making product salable. Should I try to differentiate myself by adding more features or should I go with standard offering and compete on price ? Thank you !
- sebg 11y ago
  Compete on providing the most value you can with the smallest feature set possible. Really figure out what the core issue is and then solve that. That's what will make a product salable - that you fix the most important problem for the person who is looking at your offering. Standard offerings or price don't matter if you don't solve their most pressing problem. Same the other way, if you solve their most pressing problem a business will pay way more than you as an individual would consider feasible.
- patio11 11y ago
  Don't compete on price, unless it is by raising it. You do not have to compete on number of features to make your product saleable. Most customers do not buy most products because they have more features than competitors. There's some minimum quanta of utility your product has to have. Almost all SaaS entrepreneurs overshoot on that -- by lots in many cases. I'd suggest, broadly, finding a take on the market that your competitors don't have yet, whether that is a use case, a customer group, a channel, etc that they haven't utilized, and build that. Strong recommendations that you a) try soliciting customers for your eventual software before it exists to see whether you're able to find customers for it, b) not build any software you cannot find customers for, and c) pick something with a price point which gets you to at least $50 a month and hopefully as far above that as you can. This is from ~10 years of experiencing the brutal, brutal math of trying to count to $10k in increments of $30.
  - shubhamjain 11y ago
    > You do not have to compete on number of features to make your product saleable. Most customers do not buy most products because they have more features than competitors. Although it seems logical that people would be willing to pay for something that provides value but won't they (at least try) to see similar alternative before they start paying? I listened to a podcast by Rob Walling, in which he speaks how there was considerable churn because people weren't able to differentiate his product (Drip) from Mailchimp. Surely, I can't put myself in the shoes of a non-technical buyer, but first thought seems to suggest me that if you start building a A/B testing software for a niche segment, first question you will have to answer to potential customers is how is it different from VWO or Optimizely.

sebg 11y ago

If you want a side income then your goal is to find people who are already paying for things you can build. If every single idea you come up with is already tried by someone else, then it means you are coming up with ideas for which people are already paying for. That's fantastic! To your question 1) If someone is already offering same product and paid customers - ask yourself - do they have 100% market share? If not, whom are they missing? Can you reach those whom they are missing? To your question 2) If you just came up with the idea, how do you know the market is thinly spread? To your question 3) Those are a very tiny tiny tiny tiny slice of all the majority of SaaS products. Is this something you are well and truly interested in? If not, go back to your question 1 and figure out who has the most customers. worth watching -> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CDXJ6bMkMY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CDXJ6bMkMY

seanwilson 11y ago

It's very rare you're going to come up with a never been done before idea and even if you do it can probably be quickly copied so you'd be back where you started. Get to know your competition and draw up a table on their pros and cons, and pricing. You may be able to find a niche that hasn't been explored e.g. different target audience, easier to use or more advanced, different platform, alternative pricing, different API, better integrations.

abalashov 11y ago

I am not an especially creative "idea man" or any kind of "visionary"; my sole strength has always been in improved execution or better implementation of things that already exist. This even applies when I conjure solutions to my own problems, as one is often advised to do when mining for business ideas. All I ever want is a better X. I think that suitably describes the vast majority of the economy, and leads to no particular poverty of entrepreneurial strategies. Moreover, it seems that markets are almost always bigger than technical guys think. If everything were as tired, old, and hackneyed as my pessimistic take suggests, almost everything my customers offer would be completely unmarketable and I'd have no business. So, relax. Almost nothing in life is truly original. Just think of something genuinely useful and build it. :-)

manomano 11y ago

When Starbucks started their idea (to serve coffee) it was not a new or unique idea. They excelled because of their execution (quality, customer service, branding, customer experience, etc). I think a common mistake people make is believing their business idea has to be super unique. Instead, research businesses which are growing and do what they do. Are baseball hats popular in your area? Create an online baseball hat e-commerce website and focus on execution.

k__ 11y ago

I know a bunch of companies who make money with old ideas. Most of them just appeal to special kind of customers. Some only target small businesses, some only consumers, some only big corps. This alone is often enough to differentiate from others.

ignasl 11y ago

Concentrate on execution of the best idea you have. 1. Someone is already offering same product and has paid customers? Do better product and better marketing and you will succeed :)

hacknat 11y ago

I'm going to offer a different take on your problem than the traditional response from this community, which is, "It doesn't matter, it's about execution." This is a perfectly valid answer, but there's another valid answer as well, and I thought I'd throw it out there in the interest of completeness and in case you're interested in it as a viable alternative. Original and good ideas come from becoming an expert in something or by learning about something that is on the bleeding edge. By definition lots of people are coming up with SaaS solutions for AWS, etc, because it is absolutely not bleeding edge anymore. Let me be clear, this doesn't mean you have to be a technical wizard (though sometimes it does). Uber sounds like an obvious idea now, requiring little technical wizardry (at least to get the idea going). However, in 2009 it was probably only obvious to the few people who were at the intersection of understanding the just-launched App Store and what technologies were going to be ubiquitous in smart phones (and that smart phones would become ubiquitous). Other ideas do require a good deal of technical wizardry to be on the forefront of. Wrapping containers in an easily understandable cli and making them mutable through a secure daemon API required a lot of technical acumen to accomplish. Thus we have Docker. Notice that the more technically challenging project in my examples (probably) resulted in less financial reward for its creator(s). However I'd guess the creators of Docker enjoyed building what they built and are doing fine, financially speaking. Go out and play with something that interests you and see what comes of it. If you stick to it you'll have fun and probably make money along the way. Maybe you'll become a billionaire (though, it often seems, to me, to be more trouble than it's worth) or maybe you'll just be able to sustain yourself doing something that you love.

newsingletoned 11y ago

@All - Thanks everyone. I definitely found new outlook and will give my best shot.

neltnerb 11y ago

Optimistic: If they already have the same product and paid customers, learn everything you possibly can tease out of why they do it the way they do it. They are almost guaranteed to not be dumb, or at least that's the attitude you should take. Why did they choose the niche and approach they did? Is there a differentiation that won't be a regression from what they offer for at least some subset of the customers? Assuming it makes it worse for some and better for others, are the numbers of "betters" a big enough market to focus on as a niche? As long as you're not searching for VC funding and okay with being a small fry, that seems low enough risk to try out at least... Personal: I hate companies that sell my data, it's almost always obvious immediately, and while I still make the tradeoff sometimes, it's rare. Purely from a personal preference standpoint... can you try just charging for something worth paying for? More enterprise, less bottom of the bucket deal seekers? Are your customers businesses are or individuals? Can you target businesses instead? I think they're way easier to come to a lucrative accommodation with with minimal sales effort. Maybe try a freemium model instead, or one with very low entry fees to try it out before normal monthly fees arrive? Sorry, this might be unrealistic and old school for Web 3.0 startups... I work in chemicals so obviously my perspective is skewed.

sharemywin 11y ago

put up a landing page with 3 bullets for benefits and features, you may think customer want. Add a link to a free trial form. figure out your cost per lead. Now you have a starting point for business. Email them and tell them your working on new version and when its complete you'll let them try it. try a couple variations on bullet points until you find the features most import to your potential users.