5 ms·

Well, this may be insanely obvious, but how do you locate real problems? I realize there's an easy opportunity to make fun of me for asking that, but I'm just

by Skywing 16y ago

Well, this may be insanely obvious, but how do you locate real problems? I realize there's an easy opportunity to make fun of me for asking that, but I'm just curious. Do you solve problems that you yourself face? Do you look around for signs of problems online? Ask people you know? All of this, I'm guessing, would be worth while.

mgkimsal 16y ago
"Try to solve real problems" is, imo, almost a cop out. It's too vague to be a useful answer to to the question. As for people 'solving real problems'... well... I've known plenty of people who think they're doing just that. It's often identified as a problem they have themselves, or close friends. They spend time working on it (often too long) without knowing there's already 50 solutions out there. Which leads to 'research your audience before building'. Well... how do you do that? You need to make sure the people you're asking A) actually have a clue and B) actually give a damn about having a clue. My other answer, which may be more helpful (but probably not) is 1. I find things that have been problematic for me from a tech standpoint, or 2. I look for interesting tech I'd like to learn more about, and look at industries friends/relatives are in. With #1, for example, I learned SOLR a few years ago. It's not that hard to set up, but not everyone can due to hosting restrictions. I'd played with the idea of dedicated SOLR hosting, but dilly dallied too long - there's multiple players there now. That's in some ways good - it was not a crazy idea, if they're doing it too. With #2, for example, I'd like to learn more about Twilio. I'm looking for options to test out Twilio in the context of some current customers by learning more about their business operations. It seems there's a couple places where some custom Twilio integration makes sense, and we'll look to do something early next year. Based on what's done for them, and how that works, there might be a spin-off 'web business' from that. I hope that helps a bit.
AgentConundrum 16y ago
how do you locate real problems? In my case, I tripped over them. I always hated the common advice that before you can understand a language, you have to "use it in anger." I.e. you need to use it to build something real, where you'll inevitably run up against some weird construct that frustrates the hell out of you as a beginner. I just couldn't think of anything worth building. In the last year, however, I've had three ideas. I think two of them are at least sort of decent (the other is kinda crappy, but since it was the first one, I was in love with it for a while because I finally had an idea!). These two were just things I discovered I wished existed. I just sort of tripped over them. The first of the "good" ideas came when I thought I was going to have to move across the country (Canada). I found what looked like a popular site for finding apartments in my would-be adoptive city. The interface turned out to be horrible, with little to no proper search abilities. This was incredibly frustrating because my girlfriend smokes (nasty habit...) and we have a cat. Without proper search, I just ordered available apartments by ascending price, and go through them one by one to see if I could find something decent. I actually got so fed up with it, that I ran wget on the site and grepped the shit out of it to try to make my own limited search. Also annoying was that sorting by price sucked, since many had extra fees (animal deposit, animal rent, parking, etc.) that weren't included, and you would often find a one bedroom listed that had details in its description saying, "oh, we also have 2bd for this price, or 3bd for that price" so even limiting your search by room count wasn't reliable. That was sort of rambling, but the point was it was painful enough that I just decided I would build a better mousetrap for that city, using the funds from my shiny new job. Well, I never got the job, but the idea stuck that there are a lot of less than ideal apartment search sites out there, so maybe the market could use my better mousetrap. After that, I had a battle with RSI leaving me coding-disabled for a bit, and I came up with a new project that I'm building now (literally now - I'm procrastinating by writing this reply) that I liked better. In fact, the new idea was borne of the old idea, since it's related to learning programming and based on my desire to learn more to build the first site. I guess what I'm trying to say is that inspiration comes from the damnedest places, but it seems to often be rooted - at least for me - in just a sincere desire to have something that doesn't exist, to solve a problem you have encountered. Think about your daily life, or just keep your eyes open for the next week, and analyze the things around you. Are there any tools/resources you wish you had access to, but don't yet exist? Build them! Have you used something recently that was more painful than it needed to be? Improve it! It's not easy for everyone, it certainly isn't easy for me, but there are opportunities out there if you just keep an eye out for them. Best of luck. * And if you really get stuck, just build my damn apartment site. :-P
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
signal 16y ago
I think to ensure success you need to pursue solutions to problems you actually care about. Unless you have significant time or cash resources I don't think you could get far just picking things you think would be good ideas. For instance, I wouldn't last 5 minutes starting a project to help potential or new immigrants, recovering drug addicts, or yacht owners. Even though I think those may be valuable niches for solutions, I have no investment in the outcome. I would have no way of judging progress or success without taking someone else's word for it. I don't think there is any lack of problems you care about if you think hard enough, and if that fails, just take a walk around your neighborhood, your home, your job. Something will piss you off/inspire you soon enough.

by Skywing 16y ago

mgkimsal 16y ago

"Try to solve real problems" is, imo, almost a cop out. It's too vague to be a useful answer to to the question. As for people 'solving real problems'... well... I've known plenty of people who think they're doing just that. It's often identified as a problem they have themselves, or close friends. They spend time working on it (often too long) without knowing there's already 50 solutions out there. Which leads to 'research your audience before building'. Well... how do you do that? You need to make sure the people you're asking A) actually have a clue and B) actually give a damn about having a clue. My other answer, which may be more helpful (but probably not) is 1. I find things that have been problematic for me from a tech standpoint, or 2. I look for interesting tech I'd like to learn more about, and look at industries friends/relatives are in. With #1, for example, I learned SOLR a few years ago. It's not that hard to set up, but not everyone can due to hosting restrictions. I'd played with the idea of dedicated SOLR hosting, but dilly dallied too long - there's multiple players there now. That's in some ways good - it was not a crazy idea, if they're doing it too. With #2, for example, I'd like to learn more about Twilio. I'm looking for options to test out Twilio in the context of some current customers by learning more about their business operations. It seems there's a couple places where some custom Twilio integration makes sense, and we'll look to do something early next year. Based on what's done for them, and how that works, there might be a spin-off 'web business' from that. I hope that helps a bit.

AgentConundrum 16y ago

how do you locate real problems? In my case, I tripped over them. I always hated the common advice that before you can understand a language, you have to "use it in anger." I.e. you need to use it to build something real, where you'll inevitably run up against some weird construct that frustrates the hell out of you as a beginner. I just couldn't think of anything worth building. In the last year, however, I've had three ideas. I think two of them are at least sort of decent (the other is kinda crappy, but since it was the first one, I was in love with it for a while because I finally had an idea!). These two were just things I discovered I wished existed. I just sort of tripped over them. The first of the "good" ideas came when I thought I was going to have to move across the country (Canada). I found what looked like a popular site for finding apartments in my would-be adoptive city. The interface turned out to be horrible, with little to no proper search abilities. This was incredibly frustrating because my girlfriend smokes (nasty habit...) and we have a cat. Without proper search, I just ordered available apartments by ascending price, and go through them one by one to see if I could find something decent. I actually got so fed up with it, that I ran wget on the site and grepped the shit out of it to try to make my own limited search. Also annoying was that sorting by price sucked, since many had extra fees (animal deposit, animal rent, parking, etc.) that weren't included, and you would often find a one bedroom listed that had details in its description saying, "oh, we also have 2bd for this price, or 3bd for that price" so even limiting your search by room count wasn't reliable. That was sort of rambling, but the point was it was painful enough that I just decided I would build a better mousetrap for that city, using the funds from my shiny new job. Well, I never got the job, but the idea stuck that there are a lot of less than ideal apartment search sites out there, so maybe the market could use my better mousetrap. After that, I had a battle with RSI leaving me coding-disabled for a bit, and I came up with a new project that I'm building now (literally now - I'm procrastinating by writing this reply) that I liked better. In fact, the new idea was borne of the old idea, since it's related to learning programming and based on my desire to learn more to build the first site. I guess what I'm trying to say is that inspiration comes from the damnedest places, but it seems to often be rooted - at least for me - in just a sincere desire to have something that doesn't exist, to solve a problem you have encountered. Think about your daily life, or just keep your eyes open for the next week, and analyze the things around you. Are there any tools/resources you wish you had access to, but don't yet exist? Build them! Have you used something recently that was more painful than it needed to be? Improve it! It's not easy for everyone, it certainly isn't easy for me, but there are opportunities out there if you just keep an eye out for them. Best of luck. * And if you really get stuck, just build my damn apartment site. :-P

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

signal 16y ago

I think to ensure success you need to pursue solutions to problems you actually care about. Unless you have significant time or cash resources I don't think you could get far just picking things you think would be good ideas. For instance, I wouldn't last 5 minutes starting a project to help potential or new immigrants, recovering drug addicts, or yacht owners. Even though I think those may be valuable niches for solutions, I have no investment in the outcome. I would have no way of judging progress or success without taking someone else's word for it. I don't think there is any lack of problems you care about if you think hard enough, and if that fails, just take a walk around your neighborhood, your home, your job. Something will piss you off/inspire you soon enough.