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You could probably talk to business owners with problems, launch an (appropriately priced; hundreds to thousands of dollars per year) product against those prob

You could probably talk to business owners with problems, launch an (appropriately priced; hundreds to thousands of dollars per year) product against those problems, build contingent on getting 10 commits to buy I don't doubt that you're absolutely right, but this bit strikes me as hard. I've struggled to find one business owner with a problem they perceive, let alone 10 with commitments to buying a solution for the same problem. Ironically, it strikes me that there's a gap here for a business to solve; connecting entrepreneurial devs with business owners aware of problems.

MiracleUser 7y ago
Yeah, this is why I have been working as a data analyst. I've taken on as many vendor management responsibilities as I can and help out with COGS and revenue attribution analysis for finance. I have been collecting ideas while making steady wage, and eventually I'll pull the trigger on something I have a backlog of like 200+ viable new product / feature ideas that help solve some business problem or improve the efficiency of activities people do with financial transactions involved. Many are too small to be stand alone for sure, but I do not believe million dollar ideas are grown in a silo
- jb775 7y ago
  Willing to discuss any of your ideas? I feel like everyone has hoarded ideas (including myself) that are never acted upon because we keep telling ourselves "eventually I'll pull the trigger" (including myself)
  - MiracleUser 7y ago
    Not the good ones ;) Most will not make sense without context of private company work anyway But as an example I also get a lot of fluff ideas for video game mechanics. For multiplayer games, the ability to tag another player for tracking. So you can pull up a menu and see players you've tagged and their recent performance and such or create your own 'achievements' and see what players have accomplished them (with necessary privacy options included of course). The primary use-cases being clan recruitment and pro-player analysis. Random product idea example: A renting service for size-adjustable tables. So you can test out what table size fits best in your space. counter-height vs standard, square vs skinny, size A in room 1 or size B in room 2, etc. probably too small a market on this idea though since itd only be worth it before expensive table purchases
amelius 7y ago
> Ironically, it strikes me that there's a gap here for a business to solve; connecting entrepreneurial devs with business owners aware of problems. This. Why hasn't this gap been filled yet?
- TuringNYC 7y ago
  Because usually when I've tried this, the business owners dont-know-what-they-dont-know so it is difficult to even articulate the problem they face. This is why I faced finding solve-able problems much easier as a consultant because once you're embedded in an organization you see their problems, and perhaps you can ask the right questions and tease out a possible sale-able solve-able solution.
- bananaeater 7y ago
  My theory is that there are actually a number of "filters" before this kind of relationship would happen. First, the business owner has to recognize the problem, care about it, allot time to understand it, have the proper motivation (financial and mental), and network with others to solve. Then on the other side of the scenario, the dev has to be logistically available to working on the project, be capable in both the tech and soft skills needed, care about it, have the proper motivation (financial and mental), and network. The hypothetical business would solve the networking issue, but not the rest. But I think these relationships are built in a more decentralized way, though chance encounters, mutual friends, and cold connections. Sort of like dating. (Kind of is because this relationship seems like one of cofounders.) Or I could be completely wrong and there is a stealth startup out there ready to shake things up.
  - texasbigdata 7y ago
    I've had the exact opposite happen, but granted more consulting than dev. 1. Know someone at the company or a key advisor 2. Spend time together 3. Hear "we think we need help but we're not sure where" 4. Respond relatively insightful with 2 or 3 things they could do that are valuable and force rank them 5. Get feedback 6. Price it. Explain value. 7. Deliver In my eyes if you're helping smaller companies sub say 1000 employees the value you bring is in knowing what to do. And telling them. They need you to understand the universe of options, what you've seen at other places (i.e. experience) and to weigh in on what works. They largely have no idea how to move the boulder otherwise you would not be there.
agwa 7y ago
Michael published an interesting post about his attempt to talk with owners of sheet metal shops: https://mtlynch.io/retrospectives/2020/01/#sheet-metal-research https://mtlynch.io/retrospectives/2020/01/#sheet-metal-resea...
- wolco 7y ago
  Interesting read. Not sure why the author was surprised that no business owner wanted to trade in their product for a saas. No one really wants to deal with a saas when a one time purchase is available. Things like free tiers, lockins prevent us from moving until something happens (something always happens from big price increases to service changes or shutdowns changes to terms, etc). Biggest problems are cost and uncertainity and losing a sense of control. A saas to a customer is run like a fly by store selling stolen goods out of the back of a truck. Even though this person has been selling at this same spot every friday you know this can't go on forever so when he doesn't show up you are not surprised. When a saas closes down / changes terms / increases prices suddenly you are not surprised. It works with some industries that have a high rate of change but if you plan on having a stable business you want to avoid saases
patio11 7y ago
Is the problem that you can’t identify owners, that you can’t successfully get in touch with business owners, that you can’t convince them to talk to you, that you can’t get signal from those conversations, or that you are accurately getting the signal “Actually literally nothing could be better about my life.” Draw the funnel diagram, with numbers if necessary. Having talked to many devs who believe similar, I think the most actionable advice is likely “Organize your next N weeks to talk to many, many more business owners than your last N weeks.”
- enraged_camel 7y ago
  The problem is usually at the start of the funnel. Most solo developers, especially those who have just quit their cushy FAANG jobs, are not positioned to personally know a lot of business owners (especially not outside of tech, where all the low-hanging fruit exist). So simply saying "go meet many business owners" doesn't help, unless you can also explain the how. To give a counter-example, I did consulting for a decade before going off to do my thing, so I have a lot of personal contacts and I'm familiar with a lot of problems, both general and specific, that businesses struggle with, and turning those into products has been relatively straight-forward. But most solo devs don't have this background, so they need more specific and actionable advice to build their funnel.
  - disiplus 7y ago
    but how many of those are interesting to work on, i too have been freelancimg and know some of problems, but when i think about them i dont reality want to work on them more them i have to.
    - enraged_camel 7y ago
      Boring is good. Makes it a lot less likely that you’ll have competition. ;)
      - mediaman 7y ago
        Agreed. If you have to be working on some exciting, disruptive project, doing solo development work that generates good income by working with run of the mill businesses with run of the mill problems is not going to be a good fit. Personally, I find boring to be quite exciting - but perhaps not if the only thing you're looking at is the technical solution. Building a small business involves figuring out how to solve the mundane but important thing, but then you get to figure out how to sell it, how much to charge, how to do customer outreach, do support, turn the business into a repeatable process, etc. Building a business out of it is quite challenging and fun and the technical solution is frankly a small part of it. Many solo-preneur types with technical backgrounds are way over-indexed on the technical aspect and want to treat it like their last technical job, but without a boss, which leads to a lot of disappointment and frustration.
jrumbut 7y ago
I don't think anyone on Upwork or whatever other job board would complain if they were out there asking for custom work and you showed up with a ready-made product. Beyond that, every business owner kvetching on Twitter. Problems are everywhere! Certainly can be very hard to get 10 business owners with the same problem to all line up and pay thousands for your software, but problems are easy to come by. Edit: filtering for problems solvable by any particular solo developer's skillset in less than 2 years is another challenge.
- Aeolun 7y ago
  People on Upwork also expect to pay $200 total instead of per month.
  - PedroBatista 7y ago
    $200?! Can you do $50?
Gepsens 7y ago
That's exactly what I went to solve 6 years ago, didn't work, but the space is probably more mature now
dangero 7y ago
I like this idea and would use it if it existed
shanecleveland 7y ago
From the post: "... I outsourced much of the writing. That cost me more than it should have because I knew nothing about hiring and managing writers, but the experience taught me a lot ..." "... no love for Xero ..." As an entrepreneurial dev who is also a business owner, it sounds like he may have some problems there to solve! Not sure if those are viable, just pointing it out. The easiest problems to solve are your own or at least ones you encounter yourself. Doing some consulting may help to see problems in business or industries that are not your own.
rafiki6 7y ago
I think the approach here is a bit backwards from what the rest of the world has always done to a degree. Software Development is a specialized skillset, not unlike a trade. If we are solving a problem for someone with software, we are essentially like a typical contractor you hire to do something at home. What you're doing here is trying to convert that into a scalable product under the assumption that many other might also have the same problem. This might be true, but as in construction, the product makers aren't selling to the consumer directly but rather the tradesperson. Every "tech" company is not actually selling tech, but rather is selling something tangible, a product of sorts. Software developers are selling their labor. If you want to find out the scalable product or solution in a particular business or domain, I think you really need to be a part of that industry or have someone who is. Otherwise, even if you end up developing a SaaS that satisfies the needs of 100 customers, you won't really ever truly be able to scale. So my suggestion is start talking to friends and family in other industries.
exolymph 7y ago
Frankly, if you can't do this part on your own, you're gonna fail anyway.
f2000 7y ago
My experience is that even if you find a business owner with a problem there's a steep climb to build a product and sell it. I'm a developer & my brother is a mortgage broker - I even worked for a few months in his office during the sub-prime bubble :-) I saw first hand many processes that could be improved , even coded a few hack "solutions." In my case, it was just too easy to get a high paying dev job than take on the risks and costs of starting a business. Coincidentally, a recent indiehackers podcast with Dave Sims of Floify (a mortgage broker product) validated what was needed. I recommend listening to this episode - very good info developing a successful product for a domain you don't know: https://www.indiehackers.com/podcast/136-dave-sims-of-floify https://www.indiehackers.com/podcast/136-dave-sims-of-floify
euro_expat 7y ago
Yeah, you are right here. It sounds nice to talk with business owners, but you'd be doing it for months to get any valuable insight. Better to build something that you can probably sell and talk with people in the course of selling it, not upfront. You can always pivot a bit once you're in a market.

MiracleUser 7y ago

Yeah, this is why I have been working as a data analyst. I've taken on as many vendor management responsibilities as I can and help out with COGS and revenue attribution analysis for finance. I have been collecting ideas while making steady wage, and eventually I'll pull the trigger on something I have a backlog of like 200+ viable new product / feature ideas that help solve some business problem or improve the efficiency of activities people do with financial transactions involved. Many are too small to be stand alone for sure, but I do not believe million dollar ideas are grown in a silo

jb775 7y ago
Willing to discuss any of your ideas? I feel like everyone has hoarded ideas (including myself) that are never acted upon because we keep telling ourselves "eventually I'll pull the trigger" (including myself)
- MiracleUser 7y ago
  Not the good ones ;) Most will not make sense without context of private company work anyway But as an example I also get a lot of fluff ideas for video game mechanics. For multiplayer games, the ability to tag another player for tracking. So you can pull up a menu and see players you've tagged and their recent performance and such or create your own 'achievements' and see what players have accomplished them (with necessary privacy options included of course). The primary use-cases being clan recruitment and pro-player analysis. Random product idea example: A renting service for size-adjustable tables. So you can test out what table size fits best in your space. counter-height vs standard, square vs skinny, size A in room 1 or size B in room 2, etc. probably too small a market on this idea though since itd only be worth it before expensive table purchases

amelius 7y ago

> Ironically, it strikes me that there's a gap here for a business to solve; connecting entrepreneurial devs with business owners aware of problems. This. Why hasn't this gap been filled yet?

TuringNYC 7y ago
Because usually when I've tried this, the business owners dont-know-what-they-dont-know so it is difficult to even articulate the problem they face. This is why I faced finding solve-able problems much easier as a consultant because once you're embedded in an organization you see their problems, and perhaps you can ask the right questions and tease out a possible sale-able solve-able solution.
bananaeater 7y ago
My theory is that there are actually a number of "filters" before this kind of relationship would happen. First, the business owner has to recognize the problem, care about it, allot time to understand it, have the proper motivation (financial and mental), and network with others to solve. Then on the other side of the scenario, the dev has to be logistically available to working on the project, be capable in both the tech and soft skills needed, care about it, have the proper motivation (financial and mental), and network. The hypothetical business would solve the networking issue, but not the rest. But I think these relationships are built in a more decentralized way, though chance encounters, mutual friends, and cold connections. Sort of like dating. (Kind of is because this relationship seems like one of cofounders.) Or I could be completely wrong and there is a stealth startup out there ready to shake things up.
- texasbigdata 7y ago
  I've had the exact opposite happen, but granted more consulting than dev. 1. Know someone at the company or a key advisor 2. Spend time together 3. Hear "we think we need help but we're not sure where" 4. Respond relatively insightful with 2 or 3 things they could do that are valuable and force rank them 5. Get feedback 6. Price it. Explain value. 7. Deliver In my eyes if you're helping smaller companies sub say 1000 employees the value you bring is in knowing what to do. And telling them. They need you to understand the universe of options, what you've seen at other places (i.e. experience) and to weigh in on what works. They largely have no idea how to move the boulder otherwise you would not be there.

agwa 7y ago

Michael published an interesting post about his attempt to talk with owners of sheet metal shops: https://mtlynch.io/retrospectives/2020/01/#sheet-metal-research https://mtlynch.io/retrospectives/2020/01/#sheet-metal-resea...

wolco 7y ago
Interesting read. Not sure why the author was surprised that no business owner wanted to trade in their product for a saas. No one really wants to deal with a saas when a one time purchase is available. Things like free tiers, lockins prevent us from moving until something happens (something always happens from big price increases to service changes or shutdowns changes to terms, etc). Biggest problems are cost and uncertainity and losing a sense of control. A saas to a customer is run like a fly by store selling stolen goods out of the back of a truck. Even though this person has been selling at this same spot every friday you know this can't go on forever so when he doesn't show up you are not surprised. When a saas closes down / changes terms / increases prices suddenly you are not surprised. It works with some industries that have a high rate of change but if you plan on having a stable business you want to avoid saases

patio11 7y ago

Is the problem that you can’t identify owners, that you can’t successfully get in touch with business owners, that you can’t convince them to talk to you, that you can’t get signal from those conversations, or that you are accurately getting the signal “Actually literally nothing could be better about my life.” Draw the funnel diagram, with numbers if necessary. Having talked to many devs who believe similar, I think the most actionable advice is likely “Organize your next N weeks to talk to many, many more business owners than your last N weeks.”

enraged_camel 7y ago
The problem is usually at the start of the funnel. Most solo developers, especially those who have just quit their cushy FAANG jobs, are not positioned to personally know a lot of business owners (especially not outside of tech, where all the low-hanging fruit exist). So simply saying "go meet many business owners" doesn't help, unless you can also explain the how. To give a counter-example, I did consulting for a decade before going off to do my thing, so I have a lot of personal contacts and I'm familiar with a lot of problems, both general and specific, that businesses struggle with, and turning those into products has been relatively straight-forward. But most solo devs don't have this background, so they need more specific and actionable advice to build their funnel.
- disiplus 7y ago
  but how many of those are interesting to work on, i too have been freelancimg and know some of problems, but when i think about them i dont reality want to work on them more them i have to.
  - enraged_camel 7y ago
    Boring is good. Makes it a lot less likely that you’ll have competition. ;)
    - mediaman 7y ago
      Agreed. If you have to be working on some exciting, disruptive project, doing solo development work that generates good income by working with run of the mill businesses with run of the mill problems is not going to be a good fit. Personally, I find boring to be quite exciting - but perhaps not if the only thing you're looking at is the technical solution. Building a small business involves figuring out how to solve the mundane but important thing, but then you get to figure out how to sell it, how much to charge, how to do customer outreach, do support, turn the business into a repeatable process, etc. Building a business out of it is quite challenging and fun and the technical solution is frankly a small part of it. Many solo-preneur types with technical backgrounds are way over-indexed on the technical aspect and want to treat it like their last technical job, but without a boss, which leads to a lot of disappointment and frustration.

jrumbut 7y ago

I don't think anyone on Upwork or whatever other job board would complain if they were out there asking for custom work and you showed up with a ready-made product. Beyond that, every business owner kvetching on Twitter. Problems are everywhere! Certainly can be very hard to get 10 business owners with the same problem to all line up and pay thousands for your software, but problems are easy to come by. Edit: filtering for problems solvable by any particular solo developer's skillset in less than 2 years is another challenge.

Aeolun 7y ago
People on Upwork also expect to pay $200 total instead of per month.
- PedroBatista 7y ago
  $200?! Can you do $50?

Gepsens 7y ago

That's exactly what I went to solve 6 years ago, didn't work, but the space is probably more mature now

dangero 7y ago

I like this idea and would use it if it existed

shanecleveland 7y ago

From the post: "... I outsourced much of the writing. That cost me more than it should have because I knew nothing about hiring and managing writers, but the experience taught me a lot ..." "... no love for Xero ..." As an entrepreneurial dev who is also a business owner, it sounds like he may have some problems there to solve! Not sure if those are viable, just pointing it out. The easiest problems to solve are your own or at least ones you encounter yourself. Doing some consulting may help to see problems in business or industries that are not your own.

rafiki6 7y ago

I think the approach here is a bit backwards from what the rest of the world has always done to a degree. Software Development is a specialized skillset, not unlike a trade. If we are solving a problem for someone with software, we are essentially like a typical contractor you hire to do something at home. What you're doing here is trying to convert that into a scalable product under the assumption that many other might also have the same problem. This might be true, but as in construction, the product makers aren't selling to the consumer directly but rather the tradesperson. Every "tech" company is not actually selling tech, but rather is selling something tangible, a product of sorts. Software developers are selling their labor. If you want to find out the scalable product or solution in a particular business or domain, I think you really need to be a part of that industry or have someone who is. Otherwise, even if you end up developing a SaaS that satisfies the needs of 100 customers, you won't really ever truly be able to scale. So my suggestion is start talking to friends and family in other industries.

exolymph 7y ago

Frankly, if you can't do this part on your own, you're gonna fail anyway.

f2000 7y ago

My experience is that even if you find a business owner with a problem there's a steep climb to build a product and sell it. I'm a developer & my brother is a mortgage broker - I even worked for a few months in his office during the sub-prime bubble :-) I saw first hand many processes that could be improved , even coded a few hack "solutions." In my case, it was just too easy to get a high paying dev job than take on the risks and costs of starting a business. Coincidentally, a recent indiehackers podcast with Dave Sims of Floify (a mortgage broker product) validated what was needed. I recommend listening to this episode - very good info developing a successful product for a domain you don't know: https://www.indiehackers.com/podcast/136-dave-sims-of-floify https://www.indiehackers.com/podcast/136-dave-sims-of-floify

euro_expat 7y ago

Yeah, you are right here. It sounds nice to talk with business owners, but you'd be doing it for months to get any valuable insight. Better to build something that you can probably sell and talk with people in the course of selling it, not upfront. You can always pivot a bit once you're in a market.