Ask HN: How do you find (and solve) interesting business problems?
3 comments
1. "Interesting" is way more about your own interests than it is about some inherent trait of a problem. Cultivate your own interests, live an interesting life, and build the skills that would let you contribute. That's a way better way of pursuing problems than waiting for 'the right idea' to land in your lap.
2. You should say "aw shucks, I guess I can't do everything," and then go back to work on what you're actually focused on. And maybe you tell someone you know who is interested in that domain that you've got an idea that they've probably already thought of.
2. You should say "aw shucks, I guess I can't do everything," and then go back to work on what you're actually focused on. And maybe you tell someone you know who is interested in that domain that you've got an idea that they've probably already thought of.
Thank you for answering : ) I will try to clarify what I was first aiming at when I asked HN...
1. Let's put it that way, with a completely made-up example. Suppose that I am an engineer (of whatever field you prefer) with some amount of money, an appetite for learning and after 5-10 years of working, I have failed to find a suitable business opportunity. I could go around and ask every business I know about problems that they have, but I would like to find a way to make this faster - to gain knowledge about relevant problems in an efficient way. What should I do?
2. Well that is a problem ; ) Would there be a way to bring more problems to light, then? To solve more of them? What prevents people from sharing these problems?
1. Let's put it that way, with a completely made-up example. Suppose that I am an engineer (of whatever field you prefer) with some amount of money, an appetite for learning and after 5-10 years of working, I have failed to find a suitable business opportunity. I could go around and ask every business I know about problems that they have, but I would like to find a way to make this faster - to gain knowledge about relevant problems in an efficient way. What should I do?
2. Well that is a problem ; ) Would there be a way to bring more problems to light, then? To solve more of them? What prevents people from sharing these problems?
This is a very important/interesting question,i wish more people would give they thoughts on it.
I don't think you are approaching the question from the right angle. If by 'interesting' , you mean problems whose solutions would provide a lot of value (whether you want to convert that value into money for yourself, or just looking for the satisfaction of doing some good in the world), then most of those problems are just not problems yet. Nobody has actually identified them as such.If you think of it, before google map,facebook,Uber,wikipedia etc... nobody actually knew that we needed those. The problems were there, just that nobody though of them as problems or nobody could anticipate the magnitude of the value that solving those problem would provide.
I think the guys from Y combinator (or is it from the book zero to one) say it perfectly : 'Which company nobody is building...'.Nobody is building them not because of the lack of resources, but because nobody have found a way to identify them. So to answer your first question, nobody knows how to reliably and repeatedly identify interresting problems.
As you i have been think about this question quite a bit lattly, here my though so far :
1 - The difficulty of identifying worthwhile problems can be though as a form of uncertainty, so learn about strategies to deal with uncertain environment. Zero to one, lean start-up and anti-fragility all treat this subject from different angles : in a nutshell, forget about find the right problem, start multiple small projects, iterate fast, be flexible, invest small and kill then unsuccessful project quietly.
2 - The other strategy is to leverage your particular expertise to identify problem in your domain. Depending on your domain, you might stumble into a niche problem which can generate a a lot of value for yourself (since you would have less competition)
Hope it helps
I don't think you are approaching the question from the right angle. If by 'interesting' , you mean problems whose solutions would provide a lot of value (whether you want to convert that value into money for yourself, or just looking for the satisfaction of doing some good in the world), then most of those problems are just not problems yet. Nobody has actually identified them as such.If you think of it, before google map,facebook,Uber,wikipedia etc... nobody actually knew that we needed those. The problems were there, just that nobody though of them as problems or nobody could anticipate the magnitude of the value that solving those problem would provide.
I think the guys from Y combinator (or is it from the book zero to one) say it perfectly : 'Which company nobody is building...'.Nobody is building them not because of the lack of resources, but because nobody have found a way to identify them. So to answer your first question, nobody knows how to reliably and repeatedly identify interresting problems.
As you i have been think about this question quite a bit lattly, here my though so far :
1 - The difficulty of identifying worthwhile problems can be though as a form of uncertainty, so learn about strategies to deal with uncertain environment. Zero to one, lean start-up and anti-fragility all treat this subject from different angles : in a nutshell, forget about find the right problem, start multiple small projects, iterate fast, be flexible, invest small and kill then unsuccessful project quietly.
2 - The other strategy is to leverage your particular expertise to identify problem in your domain. Depending on your domain, you might stumble into a niche problem which can generate a a lot of value for yourself (since you would have less competition)
Hope it helps
> If you think of it, before google map,facebook,Uber,wikipedia etc... nobody actually knew that we needed those. The problems were there, just that nobody though of them as problems or nobody could anticipate the magnitude of the value that solving those problem would provide.
Is that true? I have thought of all these things, and thousands more. I know of thousands of problems that nobody is working on. I always thought that the hard part was to get people to appreciate these problems, and that it's often too early to attempt to fix them now.
If what you say is true, I will quit my job today and become a billionaire. Finding problems is trivial.
Is that true? I have thought of all these things, and thousands more. I know of thousands of problems that nobody is working on. I always thought that the hard part was to get people to appreciate these problems, and that it's often too early to attempt to fix them now.
If what you say is true, I will quit my job today and become a billionaire. Finding problems is trivial.
is there a way that I can PM you? you seem to have similar questions as I do...
Thank you for replying!
"nobody knows how to reliably and repeatedly identify interresting problems"
Are we sure of that? In some ways, having access to Google most popular searches can be a way of identifying these problems... Or at least some of them.
I am wondering what are your other thoughts on the subjects. If you care to share, I would like to hear them :)
"nobody knows how to reliably and repeatedly identify interresting problems"
Are we sure of that? In some ways, having access to Google most popular searches can be a way of identifying these problems... Or at least some of them.
I am wondering what are your other thoughts on the subjects. If you care to share, I would like to hear them :)
Individuals find problems to solve in one of two ways - meeting with repeated frustration in their work until they realize they can fix it with software or by being exposed to such people and understanding their problems.
For example, I work in information security. I can spot good ideas in the security industry very quickly. I can also critique them very quickly. Not only that, but I have several good ideas that I've jotted down that I know for a fact are excellent SaaS or startup ideas, given a satisfactory technical implementation with enough business savvy.
Conversely, I love home automation, but I don't understand home automation at the business level. I have had plenty of ideas that sound good to me or probably look good on paper which I am hopelessly at a loss to implement correctly because I lack the proper domain experience to do a sanity check on their validation.
One home automation idea I had was to remove the expensive programmers used by high-end audio/video retailers such as Control4, Savant, etc. and build a system that creates an API for literally every single internet-capable device on the market. Instead of customers paying labor for programmers to design custom solutions, they would purchase a well-maintained, consistently updated hardware that has every connection you could want baked in. Want a song to play and lights to flicker when your smart fridge realizes your milk is almost bad? There'd be an API for each of those, down to brand and model, that you could connect IFTT style in a central Nest-like hub.
That probably sounds good. But I don't know enough about the industry. Is this a genuine pain point? Can I really validate this in the market? How difficult would it be to disrupt existing players with their labor-intensive solutions? Would resellers such as Best Buy/Magnolia be accepting of something that isn't as lucrative as them or doesn't have as much margin? How hard would it be to develop hardware or find someone to develop the hardware? What about mass production?
When you have worked extensively in a domain you develop known-knowns and known-unknowns. You progress from thinking you know a little, to thinking you know everything, to thinking you nothing, to realizing you know a lot but there is a lot more to know.
When you haven't worked in a domain, you are completely unqualified to qualify your business ideas in that industry. You don't just have known-unknowns, you have unknown-unknowns. You have no idea what you don't know, so you can't validate your ideas at all. You're floundering about like a non-technical manager trying to hire a backend engineer. Where would you even start in your assessment?
This is why it's horribly inefficient to try and "come up with an idea" artificially. Work long enough in a meaningful domain in a lucrative industry and you will develop ideas. Barring that, go talk to people in an industry. I bet if you interviewed ~1000 waiters about their job you'd have a viable business idea afterwards that you could not have conceived - or would have dismissed - on your own. I know one developer that scaled consumer desktop drag-and-drop enhancing software to five figures a year. He figured out a pain point most people didn't know or didn't care about.
This is all to say that to answer your first question, go work in a domain for a while until you find something that pisses you and your colleagues off.
For example, I work in information security. I can spot good ideas in the security industry very quickly. I can also critique them very quickly. Not only that, but I have several good ideas that I've jotted down that I know for a fact are excellent SaaS or startup ideas, given a satisfactory technical implementation with enough business savvy.
Conversely, I love home automation, but I don't understand home automation at the business level. I have had plenty of ideas that sound good to me or probably look good on paper which I am hopelessly at a loss to implement correctly because I lack the proper domain experience to do a sanity check on their validation.
One home automation idea I had was to remove the expensive programmers used by high-end audio/video retailers such as Control4, Savant, etc. and build a system that creates an API for literally every single internet-capable device on the market. Instead of customers paying labor for programmers to design custom solutions, they would purchase a well-maintained, consistently updated hardware that has every connection you could want baked in. Want a song to play and lights to flicker when your smart fridge realizes your milk is almost bad? There'd be an API for each of those, down to brand and model, that you could connect IFTT style in a central Nest-like hub.
That probably sounds good. But I don't know enough about the industry. Is this a genuine pain point? Can I really validate this in the market? How difficult would it be to disrupt existing players with their labor-intensive solutions? Would resellers such as Best Buy/Magnolia be accepting of something that isn't as lucrative as them or doesn't have as much margin? How hard would it be to develop hardware or find someone to develop the hardware? What about mass production?
When you have worked extensively in a domain you develop known-knowns and known-unknowns. You progress from thinking you know a little, to thinking you know everything, to thinking you nothing, to realizing you know a lot but there is a lot more to know.
When you haven't worked in a domain, you are completely unqualified to qualify your business ideas in that industry. You don't just have known-unknowns, you have unknown-unknowns. You have no idea what you don't know, so you can't validate your ideas at all. You're floundering about like a non-technical manager trying to hire a backend engineer. Where would you even start in your assessment?
This is why it's horribly inefficient to try and "come up with an idea" artificially. Work long enough in a meaningful domain in a lucrative industry and you will develop ideas. Barring that, go talk to people in an industry. I bet if you interviewed ~1000 waiters about their job you'd have a viable business idea afterwards that you could not have conceived - or would have dismissed - on your own. I know one developer that scaled consumer desktop drag-and-drop enhancing software to five figures a year. He figured out a pain point most people didn't know or didn't care about.
This is all to say that to answer your first question, go work in a domain for a while until you find something that pisses you and your colleagues off.
Thank you a lot for taking the time to write this, you have no idea how helpful it is - if I could upvote more than one time I would!
My question is two fold:
As an entrepreneur, how would you find an interesting problem to solve? Would you use a website such as InnoGet or InnoCentive? ( http://www.innoget.com/tech-calls )
As a business, if you stumble upon a problem that you don't have the funds or inner staff to properly address, how would you find a company that would be willing to cooperate with you on this particular problem?
Thank you.