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I launched, and have now shut down oppsdaily.com. https://oppslist.com https://oppslist.com is still up as a zombie. We asked people about problems or ineffici

I launched, and have now shut down oppsdaily.com. https://oppslist.com https://oppslist.com is still up as a zombie. We asked people about problems or inefficiencies in their industry that could be solved by Saas products and then sent those ideas out as a daily newsletter. I learned a lot, but had difficulty making money with it. Also, I'm not totally sure my heart was in it. I think about it a lot. I've recently launched a new project - https://topstonks.com https://topstonks.com where I'm exploring this new speculative culture of investing emanating from places like reddit's Wallstreetbets, and 4chan's Biz. We currently look at the most mentioned equities and send out a list of those. Once or twice a week we'll post an analysis with some comments from those communities (heads up, if you're easily offended, the language can be a bit crude.) There are bigger plans on the roadmap, but we're just starting w/ the newsletter for now.

NoOneNew 7y ago
Those are actual, real world requests in the oppslist?
- cdiamand 7y ago
  They are responses to surveys. Not users who signed in to post the idea. But yeah, they are real people.
supercall 7y ago
how did you survey people? if you dont mind me asking
- cdiamand 7y ago
  Hey! I started with Mechanical turk, and then did fair amount of cold emailing.
bcherny 7y ago
I was a subscriber for a while. Fun idea!
Geee 7y ago
Looking at the oppslist - I think the larger issue is that lots of people are unaware of software that already exist. The top request for example has been solved multiple times since 60's already. It's basic inventory management.
- james_s_tayler 7y ago
  Yeah. Looking through the list at least half have SaaS solutions you can purchase off the shelf. The rest you can mostly cobble something together or they just aren't practical. The Mom Test has a great rule of thumb when doing customer development and that's to ask "last time you needed to do X, what did you do?" For the inventory management stuff the answer would probably be "I checked my usual spreadsheet and made the orders". And thats likely what the person will continue to do forever. If they wanted to solve the problem they would have found the software by now most likely.
- 6510 7y ago
  thats a marketing puzzle too
eloff 7y ago
I subscribed for a while. I noticed the problems were mostly solved by things that existed already, or were ideas I didn't see much potential in. It was worth exploring though.
kugelblitz 7y ago
With regards to oppslist, I think many people don't realize they have a problem. They might copy and paste data from one list to another, never realizing that the daily 1 hour job can be done with a script within seconds and with less errors. It might take someone to watch them during the work day or maybe you need to be working in the industry already and do a self-analysis.
axmangeorge 7y ago
(marketing guy here) - Topstonks is a wonderful idea. Like Bloomberg columnist Matt Levine and Janelle Shane's AI Weirdness blog had a baby. I don't have a clue whether you can monetize it, though.

NoOneNew 7y ago

Those are actual, real world requests in the oppslist?

cdiamand 7y ago
They are responses to surveys. Not users who signed in to post the idea. But yeah, they are real people.

supercall 7y ago

how did you survey people? if you dont mind me asking

cdiamand 7y ago
Hey! I started with Mechanical turk, and then did fair amount of cold emailing.

bcherny 7y ago

I was a subscriber for a while. Fun idea!

Geee 7y ago

Looking at the oppslist - I think the larger issue is that lots of people are unaware of software that already exist. The top request for example has been solved multiple times since 60's already. It's basic inventory management.

james_s_tayler 7y ago
Yeah. Looking through the list at least half have SaaS solutions you can purchase off the shelf. The rest you can mostly cobble something together or they just aren't practical. The Mom Test has a great rule of thumb when doing customer development and that's to ask "last time you needed to do X, what did you do?" For the inventory management stuff the answer would probably be "I checked my usual spreadsheet and made the orders". And thats likely what the person will continue to do forever. If they wanted to solve the problem they would have found the software by now most likely.
6510 7y ago
thats a marketing puzzle too

eloff 7y ago

I subscribed for a while. I noticed the problems were mostly solved by things that existed already, or were ideas I didn't see much potential in. It was worth exploring though.

kugelblitz 7y ago

With regards to oppslist, I think many people don't realize they have a problem. They might copy and paste data from one list to another, never realizing that the daily 1 hour job can be done with a script within seconds and with less errors. It might take someone to watch them during the work day or maybe you need to be working in the industry already and do a self-analysis.

axmangeorge 7y ago

(marketing guy here) - Topstonks is a wonderful idea. Like Bloomberg columnist Matt Levine and Janelle Shane's AI Weirdness blog had a baby. I don't have a clue whether you can monetize it, though.