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Show HN: A Product Idea Prompt Generator

epaga 6y ago
Just to say out of the 10 or so that I read, at least 7 were really clever, great food for thought. Bookmarked! Thanks for sharing this.
thamer 6y ago
This is pretty well done! I had to stop myself as I started to take some of these seriously :-) Feature idea for this website: when generating a prompt, don't leave it on the root page but change the address to something that can be used to rebuild the PRNG seed. This lets users bookmark pages or send links to generated prompts. There are many ways to do this; encoding the value in base 62 is a common way to represent a value as a ~short string (e.g. for the 64-bit seed 1949167919549607868, generate the URL <domain>/2JzD0HT2T8u).
amelius 6y ago
Does it use tech similar to GPT-3 to generate these ideas?
- vorhemus 6y ago
  It looks like at least some of those ideas are inspired by quotes from people. If you click on the info (i) icon you see some background information.
- jakobgreenfeld 6y ago
  No, it’s a boring Python script that uses a set number of templates and variables that get swapped in.
minimaxir 6y ago
Note that these are precomputed. https://prompts.productideas.co/prompts.js https://prompts.productideas.co/prompts.js You should probably say how you are generating these prompts because none of these have the hallmarks of AI-based generation or Markov chains (the corresponding Product Hunt post just says "the prompts are generated through an algorithm"). From the detailed link citations in the precomputed output, these seem manually-written and not a "generator", unless it's ad-libs of manually written citations/prompts.
- jonshariat 6y ago
  They seem ad-lib style to me. There is a set number of templates and variables that get swapped in.
  - jakobgreenfeld 6y ago
    Yes, that’s exactly the approach.
- jakobgreenfeld 6y ago
  To avoid any issues during the launch, I created a static version of the page. This means, the tool currently only uses a list of 300 pre-generated prompts. During the next few days I will switch back to the algorithm. But even then it’s not rocket science. It’s a simple (Python) algorithm. There’s no AI involved etc.
tomerico 6y ago
This is also a good source for PM interview questions
jnwatson 6y ago
I guessed this would be a "make Uber but for plumbers" kind of thing, but I'm pleasantly surprised most of these are decent paths. They aren't ideas per se, but are specific places for finding them. Well done.
- asyncscrum 6y ago
  Poober
sweetheart 6y ago
> What could you build at the interesection of the human desire for romance and Advanced food tracking and packaging? Haha oh man, I'd love to see some ideas spitballed for this.
- lainga 6y ago
  Match random users to separate ends of a very, very long piece of spaghetti...
  - sweetheart 6y ago
    I love this.
ryanmadden 6y ago
Reminds me of a parody startup generator I made years ago :) [0]. The ideas that reference a specific other company or niche are good but for more abstract prompts (e.g. "Consider the human desire for power. How could you use technology to take out steps?") I've found it's harder to get a meaningful brainstorm started. [0]https://ryanmadden.net/startupgenerator/ https://ryanmadden.net/startupgenerator/
shakezula 6y ago
Reminds me of Oblique Strategies.

Just to say out of the 10 or so that I read, at least 7 were really clever, great food for thought. Bookmarked! Thanks for sharing this.

thamer 6y ago

This is pretty well done! I had to stop myself as I started to take some of these seriously :-) Feature idea for this website: when generating a prompt, don't leave it on the root page but change the address to something that can be used to rebuild the PRNG seed. This lets users bookmark pages or send links to generated prompts. There are many ways to do this; encoding the value in base 62 is a common way to represent a value as a ~short string (e.g. for the 64-bit seed 1949167919549607868, generate the URL <domain>/2JzD0HT2T8u).

amelius 6y ago

Does it use tech similar to GPT-3 to generate these ideas?

vorhemus 6y ago
It looks like at least some of those ideas are inspired by quotes from people. If you click on the info (i) icon you see some background information.
jakobgreenfeld 6y ago
No, it’s a boring Python script that uses a set number of templates and variables that get swapped in.

minimaxir 6y ago

Note that these are precomputed. https://prompts.productideas.co/prompts.js https://prompts.productideas.co/prompts.js You should probably say how you are generating these prompts because none of these have the hallmarks of AI-based generation or Markov chains (the corresponding Product Hunt post just says "the prompts are generated through an algorithm"). From the detailed link citations in the precomputed output, these seem manually-written and not a "generator", unless it's ad-libs of manually written citations/prompts.

jonshariat 6y ago
They seem ad-lib style to me. There is a set number of templates and variables that get swapped in.
- jakobgreenfeld 6y ago
  Yes, that’s exactly the approach.
jakobgreenfeld 6y ago
To avoid any issues during the launch, I created a static version of the page. This means, the tool currently only uses a list of 300 pre-generated prompts. During the next few days I will switch back to the algorithm. But even then it’s not rocket science. It’s a simple (Python) algorithm. There’s no AI involved etc.

tomerico 6y ago

This is also a good source for PM interview questions

jnwatson 6y ago

I guessed this would be a "make Uber but for plumbers" kind of thing, but I'm pleasantly surprised most of these are decent paths. They aren't ideas per se, but are specific places for finding them. Well done.

asyncscrum 6y ago
Poober

sweetheart 6y ago

> What could you build at the interesection of the human desire for romance and Advanced food tracking and packaging? Haha oh man, I'd love to see some ideas spitballed for this.

lainga 6y ago
Match random users to separate ends of a very, very long piece of spaghetti...
- sweetheart 6y ago
  I love this.

ryanmadden 6y ago

Reminds me of a parody startup generator I made years ago :) [0]. The ideas that reference a specific other company or niche are good but for more abstract prompts (e.g. "Consider the human desire for power. How could you use technology to take out steps?") I've found it's harder to get a meaningful brainstorm started. [0]https://ryanmadden.net/startupgenerator/ https://ryanmadden.net/startupgenerator/

shakezula 6y ago

Reminds me of Oblique Strategies.