Ideas do not fall from the sky.
We have been telling ourselves that we would definitely start working on something if the opportunity comes. However, many studies have proven that luck doesn’t strike people for no reason. For example, optimists generally have better “luck” as compared to pessimists. There was also another experiment where a $50 dollar note was placed on the floor and picked up by a lady who was not paying attention to her phone while walking after 20 minutes. Coincidence? I don't think so.
Sames goes to any type of “ideas”. We have to do something to get this inspiration, instead of sitting on the sofa and waiting for them to knock on our doors. So what can we do to find these ideas?
From people around you
Talk to the people that you want to help solve their problems. For example, I want to serve freelancers as my target audience (as I am a firm believer in the gig economy dominance in the future), therefore I talk to my freelancer friends to understand what kind of pains are they facing throughout their businesses.
On the forum
I like to browse the forums where my target audience gathers, such as Reddit (with specific subreddit), Facebook groups, and discord channels. I read through their chats and the problems that they have been complaining about. This is a good alternative if you do not have the audience around you physically.
Personal pain
Another obvious one would be the issue that you faced day to day. It can be in your work or personal life. Ask yourself: What would be the things that I am willing to pay if someone can help me to do this?
From existing ideas
You do not have to create an original idea from scratch. Notion is not the first note-taking app and Google is not the first search engine. It can be from any existing products that you think at some sort of aspects that you could do better, that might be something you can work on. For example, if the existing products are too costly for smaller businesses to get onboarded, I can help to solve that by adjusting the features to offer, and much more friendly to my target audience (small businesses in this case).
You do not have to wait for the perfect idea to start. Begin with something small, and you will pivot countless times along the way.
I have recently faced some issues while communicating with a freelance team on a project. Sometimes, the project management tools are just overkilled for freelance projects (which could be just a few simple tasks), and there is no effective (including cost) communication channel for them as well. Therefore, I would like to create a product, where freelancers can communicate (a real-time chat system) with their clients, and have basic project management tools on the same platform. In that case, they do not have to use and learn so many different tools. Besides, the pricing model would be suitable for freelancers and small projects too, which is charging by days (instead of by month). Therefore, people would not feel so much pressure of having to pay while having no business or project.
I do not have a super clear features roadmap in terms of this idea yet, therefore I quickly put up a simple Webflow landing page to collect some feedback on this idea. If you faced the same issue, I would really appreciate it if you can help to join the newsletter and help to shape the product along the way. Of course, there would be some special royalty for people who joined this in the early journey. Check out the landing page here:
Hope to hear from you soon :)
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