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The problem with so many "startup ideas" is that they are a solution to the problem, "I want to create a startup and don't have an idea." Not surprisingly, this

The problem with so many "startup ideas" is that they are a solution to the problem, "I want to create a startup and don't have an idea." Not surprisingly, this tends to produce copycat concepts, products with no real market fit, services that target sexy but oversaturated markets, etc. There are lots and lots of problems that are either unsolved or are being solved in ways that are less efficient and cost-effective than they could be, particularly outside of the consumer space. In many cases, these problems can be solved with relatively unsophisticated applications. But the folks who sit around thinking about the usual consumer internet suspects (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.) never discover these problems because more often than not, they have no domain expertise. Sadly, it seems to me that many technical wantrepreneurs have no real interest in developing domain expertise because they believe there's more value in mastering the framework du jour than focusing in on a vertical and developing a real understanding of it over time.

joshhart 13y ago
Yes, of course if you have domain expertise and there is a need you can recognize a niche to fill with a company. I think getting domain expertise is easier said than done and could probably require quitting one's day job to go work in industry X for 5 years. Possibly just to find out that filling a niche is hard.
- 7Figures2Commas 13y ago
  1. I didn't suggest that domain expertise is easy to develop. Nobody gains expertise overnight. That's the point. 2. You don't have to quit your day job to develop domain expertise. Be strategic and try to make sure your day jobs are related to a specific industry. Far too many people hop from random startup to random startup. That's not surprising: the pay can be excellent, you get to work with the latest and greatest technologies, and you get a lottery ticket in the form of equity. But many of these jobs won't provide enough exposure to a vertical to actually gain meaningful knowledge of it. 3. If you get involved in an industry, you should take the time to establish relationships, especially with folks who are non-technical. If you nurture those relationships and keep your eyes open, you will often meet highly-knowledgeable, well-connected non-technical individuals who make for perfect non-technical co-founders. These are not the "non-technical co-founder seeking technical co-founder" wantrapreneurs with no domain expertise of their own who you run into all the time in Silicon Valley. 4. If you're not prepared to invest the time in understanding a specific market, that's fine. Be the best engineer you can be, try to maximize your income and consider whether it's worth continually beating your head against a brick wall to find an "idea" so that you can create a "startup."
  - abrichr 13y ago
    Great points. Any suggestions as to verticals which are particularly under served by software?
    - 7Figures2Commas 13y ago
      Let me put it this way: in all of the industries I've been exposed to, I've never encountered one that had a) no pain points or b) companies entirely happy with their current vendors. Note that you don't necessarily need to find a market that's underserved. Plenty of markets are served, but not well. Sometimes, doing something marginally better and/or doing it for less than the entrenched competition is all you need to create opportunity. The size of that opportunity will vary of course. A lot of wantrapreneurs look at huge markets and think in terms of 8, 9 and 10 figures, but if you're more realistic (i.e. you'd be happy with a six or seven-figure annual top line with healthy margins), I would suggest that opportunity is abundant. The easiest way to find that opportunity? If you meet people in unsexy markets, talk to them. Most wantrapreneurs won't give these folks the time of day.
- Spearchucker 13y ago
  Not that difficult. Instead of starting a start-up when you come out of school, go work in a few IT departments. You will find something that is needed somewhere.
- dreamfactory 13y ago
  Write articles and go and interview people as a journalist/researcher. You can do that in your spare time and you will get good access to decision makers and find out all about industry perspectives and pain points.
amorphid 13y ago
I agree that domain expertise is often lacking in startup founders, especially the "business" founder. For several years I wanted to form a recruiting startup without having built up a solid understanding of how recruiting works. After I had several years of recruiting under my belt, I was able to build a reasonably successful small business (originally a startup that couldn't scale) that exploited a nice little niche in the recruiting world. That small business wouldn't have been possible if I hadn't known a lot about recruiting.
ensignavenger 13y ago
I have come up with a lot of ideas to solve business problems, but I am reluctant to implement them for the concern that selling to such businesses would be a far more difficult problem than simply creating something that works better than what they are currently using. Business often make stupid decisions based on relationships with sells people or brand recognition more than merit of the solution. Of course, this problem exists in the consumer space as well, but the market is so much larger (everyone is a consumer, not everyone makes decisions on what solutions to deploy in a business).
- ef4 13y ago
  In my experience, you have the difficulty backward. It's just fear of the unknown that keeps too many technical people from attempting it. If your product has a demonstrable return on investment, then it is far easier to sell to businesses. Because businesses actually make decisions based on ROI, and consumers mostly don't. Remember that to make a fair comparison, you need to do it per dollar, not per sale. Even if it's 10x easier to sell to one consumer than one business, if a business customer pays 100x more money, then it is still vastly easier to sell to businesses.
  - arbuge 13y ago
    This is only true if there is a cost-effective way to reach the businesses in question. Sometimes there is, sometimes it's less clear.
    - ef4 13y ago
      Sure, but the same objection applies to consumer-targeted products. If your product is for "everyone", you may need to spend large amounts of money to get attention.
  - madiator 13y ago
    You are mostly right, but then there are other issues to consider: why would a business buy from you who is just starting out? They would like to have some guarantee you will be around after a few years..
nutanc 13y ago
Very valid point. That's why even in Hacker news we see a lot more items talking about frameworks instead of domain related topics.
- bayesianhorse 13y ago
  There are fewer frameworks than there are domains out there, so audience of hackernews tends to connect over frameworks rather than domains.
pajop 13y ago
We recently had a hackathon with a multilateral rice science nonprofit - they had very focused challenges http://rice-hackathon.irri.org/challenges http://rice-hackathon.irri.org/challenges using their domain expertise - the results of the hackathon was eye-opening!

joshhart 13y ago

Yes, of course if you have domain expertise and there is a need you can recognize a niche to fill with a company. I think getting domain expertise is easier said than done and could probably require quitting one's day job to go work in industry X for 5 years. Possibly just to find out that filling a niche is hard.

7Figures2Commas 13y ago
1. I didn't suggest that domain expertise is easy to develop. Nobody gains expertise overnight. That's the point. 2. You don't have to quit your day job to develop domain expertise. Be strategic and try to make sure your day jobs are related to a specific industry. Far too many people hop from random startup to random startup. That's not surprising: the pay can be excellent, you get to work with the latest and greatest technologies, and you get a lottery ticket in the form of equity. But many of these jobs won't provide enough exposure to a vertical to actually gain meaningful knowledge of it. 3. If you get involved in an industry, you should take the time to establish relationships, especially with folks who are non-technical. If you nurture those relationships and keep your eyes open, you will often meet highly-knowledgeable, well-connected non-technical individuals who make for perfect non-technical co-founders. These are not the "non-technical co-founder seeking technical co-founder" wantrapreneurs with no domain expertise of their own who you run into all the time in Silicon Valley. 4. If you're not prepared to invest the time in understanding a specific market, that's fine. Be the best engineer you can be, try to maximize your income and consider whether it's worth continually beating your head against a brick wall to find an "idea" so that you can create a "startup."
- abrichr 13y ago
  Great points. Any suggestions as to verticals which are particularly under served by software?
  - 7Figures2Commas 13y ago
    Let me put it this way: in all of the industries I've been exposed to, I've never encountered one that had a) no pain points or b) companies entirely happy with their current vendors. Note that you don't necessarily need to find a market that's underserved. Plenty of markets are served, but not well. Sometimes, doing something marginally better and/or doing it for less than the entrenched competition is all you need to create opportunity. The size of that opportunity will vary of course. A lot of wantrapreneurs look at huge markets and think in terms of 8, 9 and 10 figures, but if you're more realistic (i.e. you'd be happy with a six or seven-figure annual top line with healthy margins), I would suggest that opportunity is abundant. The easiest way to find that opportunity? If you meet people in unsexy markets, talk to them. Most wantrapreneurs won't give these folks the time of day.
Spearchucker 13y ago
Not that difficult. Instead of starting a start-up when you come out of school, go work in a few IT departments. You will find something that is needed somewhere.
dreamfactory 13y ago
Write articles and go and interview people as a journalist/researcher. You can do that in your spare time and you will get good access to decision makers and find out all about industry perspectives and pain points.

amorphid 13y ago

I agree that domain expertise is often lacking in startup founders, especially the "business" founder. For several years I wanted to form a recruiting startup without having built up a solid understanding of how recruiting works. After I had several years of recruiting under my belt, I was able to build a reasonably successful small business (originally a startup that couldn't scale) that exploited a nice little niche in the recruiting world. That small business wouldn't have been possible if I hadn't known a lot about recruiting.

ensignavenger 13y ago

I have come up with a lot of ideas to solve business problems, but I am reluctant to implement them for the concern that selling to such businesses would be a far more difficult problem than simply creating something that works better than what they are currently using. Business often make stupid decisions based on relationships with sells people or brand recognition more than merit of the solution. Of course, this problem exists in the consumer space as well, but the market is so much larger (everyone is a consumer, not everyone makes decisions on what solutions to deploy in a business).

ef4 13y ago
In my experience, you have the difficulty backward. It's just fear of the unknown that keeps too many technical people from attempting it. If your product has a demonstrable return on investment, then it is far easier to sell to businesses. Because businesses actually make decisions based on ROI, and consumers mostly don't. Remember that to make a fair comparison, you need to do it per dollar, not per sale. Even if it's 10x easier to sell to one consumer than one business, if a business customer pays 100x more money, then it is still vastly easier to sell to businesses.
- arbuge 13y ago
  This is only true if there is a cost-effective way to reach the businesses in question. Sometimes there is, sometimes it's less clear.
  - ef4 13y ago
    Sure, but the same objection applies to consumer-targeted products. If your product is for "everyone", you may need to spend large amounts of money to get attention.
- madiator 13y ago
  You are mostly right, but then there are other issues to consider: why would a business buy from you who is just starting out? They would like to have some guarantee you will be around after a few years..

nutanc 13y ago

Very valid point. That's why even in Hacker news we see a lot more items talking about frameworks instead of domain related topics.

bayesianhorse 13y ago
There are fewer frameworks than there are domains out there, so audience of hackernews tends to connect over frameworks rather than domains.

pajop 13y ago

We recently had a hackathon with a multilateral rice science nonprofit - they had very focused challenges http://rice-hackathon.irri.org/challenges http://rice-hackathon.irri.org/challenges using their domain expertise - the results of the hackathon was eye-opening!