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before building an idea | feature | company | etc, if you go through and make sure you can answer "what problem are you trying to solve?" you are much more like
by ryanburk 12y ago
before building an idea | feature | company | etc, if you go through and make sure you can answer "what problem are you trying to solve?" you are much more likely on your way to success. everyone who is a builder should be asking this question frequently and I'm amazed how few people actually do. this was a great example of solving a real problem.
- cschneid 12y agoThe 30x500 philosophy the article mentions takes that to the extreme. The workflow is basically: 1. Find an audience ("wordpress consultants") 2. Stalk their forums & chat rooms. Listen to complaints and problems. 3. "Flip their pain" - figure out how you could trivially fix their problem. Nothing more. Don't jump straight to "web app" or even "softwarE" at this point. People in my class were working on shipping well built excel sheets, or books, or trainings. 4. Build that thing in #3, and sell. Normal email / blog marketing techniques apply here. Get paying customers right away.
- nly 12y agoSolving 'real problems' is hard. Some categories 'real problems' often fall in to: 1. Problems too trivial to expend energy and time solving once and for all. (It's easier to pay the small cost each time you encounter the problem). Not marketable. 2. Problems you can solve, but everyone else already have partial or 'good enough' solutions for. Competitive, no innovation. 3. Problems you think you can solve, but you really can't. Doomed. 4. Problems you know you can't solve on your own, or with the resources available to you. Expensive. 5. Problems outside of your area of expertise. 6. Problems you have, but really aren't problems to anyone else.