> Call around, talk to your network. I don’t just mean those ~300 people you’ve never met on LinkedIn, but your actual family, Facebook friends, etc. ... Figure out what the problems that they’re having are. Solve exactly the problems they express
This is, imo, the biggest hurdle for engineers who want to become entrepreneurs. I've seen so many HN posts about people trying to crowd source startup problems, trying to automate away this piece and just get down to coding. I too struggled with this for the longest time. I felt like a solution looking for a problem. Just give me a problem, any problem, and I'll build the best damn app and be on my way!
But that's not how it works. If you want to stop being an engineer, you need to stop acting like one. Engineers have their problems roughly scoped and entered in a JIRA board. Entrepreneurs have to go find problems to solve. You want to go be an entrepreneur? Go learn to talk to people. Go learn to listen to others, empathize, and to convince people to believe in you. You will be a company of one - so go build out your personal sales & marketing departments.
A key thing most developers wanting the become entrepreneurs miss (I certainly did) is that more often then not coding something is the slowest and/or most expensive way to solve someone’s problem. Many, many business ideas could probably just be a Wordpress site with a small plugin which you can farm off to Upwork for a pittance that doesn’t make for a very good “Show HN”.
I spent a lot of time going to angel rounds, vc meetups. Talking to a lot of people about their issues, what they needed. It was a great way to get exposed to a myriad of problems. Angel.co is also a good one for finding places where some one has an idea, but needs tech help.
The problem I had. Is that a majority of what I came across was mobile and web orientated. As a back-end dev, it's not something I can help with. Especially when for the pitch deck metrics/numbers and a pretty demo are the big selling points.
SaaS ideas are a dime a dozen. Being in the right market at the right time against the right competition with the right access to the right resources to do the right advertising to perform the right acquiring without the wrong churn is where the magic is at.
Things you need (in my opinion) for an even semi-successful SaaS platform: Good UI with an easy to understand idea that provides an immediately obvious value, all while being easy to monetize sustainably. Coupled that with being able to actually find + reach customers.
I struggle with finding ways to create functionality with good UI without coding (like the author mentions). I seem to always fall into a situation where I need a bit more than the no code solution I’m using offers.
Has our industry just given up on any software which isn't "SaaS"? I have a lot of problems with software today, and none of them can be solved by a web app.
> So, expand your horizons: look at the construction industry, the dentist industry, the fishing industry, the graveyard management industry, the gym pool management industry (these are not made up, by the way).
> But let’s reiterate the big advantage you get from considering building a product in an industry outside of yours (software development): It’s just now you’re going to be operating in an industry which has software problems and isn’t particularly optimized to solve them.
Be careful about this. There is money to be made in those industries, and they might not have as much competition as software for software companies do.
But do you really want to be in those industries? Would you enjoy going to industry-specific conferences and mingling with those folks? If your business gets even a modicum of success, you will be working on it for several years to come.
Market/founder fit is something that isn't talked enough: who you choose to serve matters. What good is your business if you feel trapped inside it?
So the next time you set out to build a business, do yourself a favor and think about this from the beginning.
Im coming to this realization right now, it looks like one of these cliche but actually profound ideas like you can truly be great at something if its not simply job or career but something you can not not do, obsession, sickness.
The big takeaway from this article for me was this line:
"Create a solution to somebody else’s problem, where that problem sits at the intersection of being genuinely interesting / meaningful to you and being something that you are reasonably capable of addressing."
Instead of finding a good SaaS idea, I would rephrase the question to finding a valuable problem to solve, a problem which people are very willing to solve in exchange for other resources like money.
In school, we are trained to solve a problem very well. But the problems are given by teachers. There is no one to train you finding a valuable since kindergarten. That's why it's so hard to find it as an adult.
Finding a SaaS idea isn't hard. Finding one that actually makes money is. I'm talking real money, not a couple thousand bucks a month.
You may go down a path of a "big problem" that requires tons
and tons of effort and overhead, only to find the market is too small, companies rather just do it "the old way", or they simply don't want to pay enough money.
The convention is "Show HN" implies the author has created something for people to "play with or try out." Showing Hacker News something to read is just the title or description of the article even if the author is posting.
It's an interesting and well written article. Thanks.
[+] [-] chowes|6 years ago|reply
This is, imo, the biggest hurdle for engineers who want to become entrepreneurs. I've seen so many HN posts about people trying to crowd source startup problems, trying to automate away this piece and just get down to coding. I too struggled with this for the longest time. I felt like a solution looking for a problem. Just give me a problem, any problem, and I'll build the best damn app and be on my way!
But that's not how it works. If you want to stop being an engineer, you need to stop acting like one. Engineers have their problems roughly scoped and entered in a JIRA board. Entrepreneurs have to go find problems to solve. You want to go be an entrepreneur? Go learn to talk to people. Go learn to listen to others, empathize, and to convince people to believe in you. You will be a company of one - so go build out your personal sales & marketing departments.
[+] [-] brtkdotse|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] soulnothing|6 years ago|reply
The problem I had. Is that a majority of what I came across was mobile and web orientated. As a back-end dev, it's not something I can help with. Especially when for the pitch deck metrics/numbers and a pretty demo are the big selling points.
[+] [-] elliotbnvl|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] MuffinFlavored|6 years ago|reply
Things you need (in my opinion) for an even semi-successful SaaS platform: Good UI with an easy to understand idea that provides an immediately obvious value, all while being easy to monetize sustainably. Coupled that with being able to actually find + reach customers.
[+] [-] diericx|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mrfusion|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ken|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] TAForObvReasons|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] balfirevic|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jmstfv|6 years ago|reply
> But let’s reiterate the big advantage you get from considering building a product in an industry outside of yours (software development): It’s just now you’re going to be operating in an industry which has software problems and isn’t particularly optimized to solve them.
Be careful about this. There is money to be made in those industries, and they might not have as much competition as software for software companies do.
But do you really want to be in those industries? Would you enjoy going to industry-specific conferences and mingling with those folks? If your business gets even a modicum of success, you will be working on it for several years to come.
Market/founder fit is something that isn't talked enough: who you choose to serve matters. What good is your business if you feel trapped inside it?
So the next time you set out to build a business, do yourself a favor and think about this from the beginning.
Relevant thread: https://capiche.com/q/looking-back-would-you-have-done-anyth...
[+] [-] alexalx|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] afriend4lyfe|6 years ago|reply
"Create a solution to somebody else’s problem, where that problem sits at the intersection of being genuinely interesting / meaningful to you and being something that you are reasonably capable of addressing."
I also want to second his book recommendation [The Mom Test](https://www.amazon.com/Mom-Test-customers-business-everyone/...). It's really short and will save you a lot of time building things nobody will pay for.
[+] [-] sillycube|6 years ago|reply
In school, we are trained to solve a problem very well. But the problems are given by teachers. There is no one to train you finding a valuable since kindergarten. That's why it's so hard to find it as an adult.
[+] [-] icedchai|6 years ago|reply
You may go down a path of a "big problem" that requires tons and tons of effort and overhead, only to find the market is too small, companies rather just do it "the old way", or they simply don't want to pay enough money.
Do your research.
[+] [-] MathCodeLove|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zachwill|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] brudgers|6 years ago|reply
It's an interesting and well written article. Thanks.
[+] [-] elliotbnvl|6 years ago|reply