Ask HN: Find Side Project
Hello everyone,
I'm a Product guy, and I know to code. I've been working in the European tech scene for seven years. It's pretty exciting, but I want to set up my own company. First, as a side project, why not work full-time on it when it generates some revenue. I don't want to build a unicorn; I want to bootstrap my company and be independent.
I have some pain points I can solve for myself, but I don't believe they would generate revenue. Ideally, I would love to work on a specific niche with an intense pain point. But I have some difficulties finding those particular niches.
What's your process for starting a new business?
An open Ask HN community consultation from 2022 where @knandraina convened hundreds of developers and bootstrappers to share real experiences, hard numbers, and tactics.
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I'm looking for ideas that are either specific issues I encounter (over and over again throughout a day/week/month) and then explore it to see how big of an issue it actually is, if it's a minor annoyance or if someone is going through it but at a much larger scale. What I mean by this is probably best reflected by a product such as Ansible - someone had to reinstall some image at a point. Then they had to do a bunch of configuration. They might have done that once a week/month/year. Then they found out that other people do this a lot more often - someone maybe did this daily or hourly. The more often, the bigger the scale.
Otherwise, I'm looking for ideas around some of the core things I'm interested in more generally - climate change is a big one, so from a technological standpoint, what would be pain points there for mass adoption of a particular technological solution. Does the average farmer know how to use automation software to run hydroponics? Probably not. Can I make something to simplify that? How much work would it be? How much money could I potentially get?
So I think if you don't have any particular ideas on your own, or you think that everything is great or that the pain of the current issues you're facing is small enough to bear, then yeah, by all means, talk to people. You'll be surprised the sort of things that come out.
Sorry for the disorganized post, but I hope it made some sense.
I started on the same path a few years ago, here's how my latest attempt is going: https://onlineornot.com/building-saas-in-one-week-how-built-onlineornot ↗
and here are breakdowns by year:
year 1: https://maxrozen.com/2018/12/31/2018-review-starting-an-internet-business ↗
year 2: https://maxrozen.com/2019/12/29/2019-further-reflections-trying-to-start-an-internet-business ↗
year 3: https://maxrozen.com/indiehacking-3-year-review ↗
year 4: https://maxrozen.com/2021-strangers-paid-my-macbook ↗
In short, do this on the side while having a full time job. It makes failure a non-event (it still hurts psychologically, but at least you can pay your bills).
Network with people whom you want to build a product for. For instance if you want to build a product for gym trainers, then book consultations with several of them online. If you want to build for C-suite then maybe get in touch with their chief of staffs on linkedin. Start the conversation. Don't be afraid to cold email people you want to talk to. A well written email can unlock access to opportunities.
Another good idea would be to attend demo days and see what people are building. There are several of these if you live in a tech hub.
Being an active listener on idea/tech podcasts also help. My favourite one these days is mfm https://twitter.com/myfirstmilpod ↗