Full disclosure: I am working on a book on how to find and test Software-as-a-Service ideas.
EDIT: Some of the more sensible are around behaviour modification. They're all a bit UK-centric, but modifiable.
EG
1) drink diaries. People aren't aware of how much they actually drink, so an easy way of keeping track and then converting that into the UK standard "units" would be good.
2) Budgeting for poor people claiming benefits. Benefits might be changing to monthly payments (from fortnightly). People say this is going to be very hard to adjust to. A simple app to help people keep track of money in and out is handy. What makes this "fun" is the need to make it work on not-smart phones and non-data plans.
I'll give you an additional $5 discount if you also complete my survey: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1UAHE1ifh81JyPhmEhpIPy7Ee0pH...
Helps me create a better book FWIW :)
I feel the bottleneck is in the validation phase. You can be brainstorming dozens of ideas, but to go anywhere with them, I feel you should research, talk to people, look at stats/trends, maybe build a brochure site/MVP and capture some leads, etc. These all take time, effort, (some) cost, and of course require the dreaded act of communicating with other human beings.
Idea work comes naturally to hackers, but communication doesn't. Plus, once you're considering communicate an idea to others, subconsciously you acknowledge that it might not be well-received or fail to take off. I believe that (in my case at least) this causes a big bottleneck. I'm always happy to ponder ideas, but seem to have less enthusiasm to do the legwork to validate them!
To whom do you reach out?
I hope to provide the reader with a good arsenal of tips and tricks on communication in my upcoming book, might be worth signing up for updates :) /shamelessplug
What I have done: post a brochure site, promising more to come, and offering a free whitepaper/guidebook in exchange for an email subscription. Use free $100 Adwords coupon to send traffic there. Count email signups. Send out a newsletter to them, try to gauge engagement.
Other tactics I know of:
- Offer pre-sales
- Talk to business owners casually
- Go to trade shows and chat
- Offer surveys
- Ask mechanical turk for feedback
- Lurk in forums to see what people are discussing
- Surf Amazon reviews to gauge how people feel about X1- I have 3 good ideas. 2. I've researched a lot and worked hard on specs, UX, UI, pitch, branding 3. Started to bootstrap as much as I can do (i'm not 100% engineer) 4. Looking for angel investment and vc.
My problemas are not the ideas, I ditch every single idea I can't validate it, my single problems are: finding a good co-founder, heavy coder so we can venture both in the ways of nerdism with the proyect and capital. I can't do code + capital search + company administration, etc. etc.
Every time I pitch my 2 biggest ideas people get shock but they're too ambitious and requiere, maybe 10 people working full time on it. After we validate the model with real people, the lean way, ofc.
Not trying to be snarky, I honestly want to know.
But also, the few investors I've been talking in the past they want a formal team with a commitment thinking, and by saying you will just hire someone to do something is not enough, at least even on leaning.
(Honest question, I want to know).
No lottery odds type instagram ideas which couldn't be a thriving business without being bought out. I also favor long term revenue models over ones that peak and have a very quick decline for all but the top 1% (e.g. app stores). That isn't to say I don't have app store apps, but they compliment the primary offering to expand the audience rather than being a revenue driver.
You see many going for the billion dollar ideas, which is cool. I'll stick with the "easily" attainable and interesting models/ideas that make six to seven figures a year. With the scalability that I require, I can do two or three (via having world-class talent on retainer from time-to-time). There you go, set for life. Do what you want and truly help people.
OP: Good luck on the book!
Mind telling us more? Sounds interesting :)
OP: Good luck on the book!
Thanks!
Btw, I'm not able to fill in the email field on your website. (Firefox on Windows)
If it still doesn't work then email me at info@howtofindsaasideas.com
in short - how do I, with an idea, test it? How do I use AdWords, keyword search, mailchimp etc etc
Got a process - validate it here
(As I suspect you are)
Book link: http://howtofindsaasideas.com/