I'm curious if people posting things they NEED would be more functional, along with a bounty. Other people who also want it can contribute to the bounty. Anyone can work on the idea's and the bounty is awarded to whoever solves it first/best. (I think you would need some sort of oversight to make sure the bounty is awarded to the rightful solution).
"$1,500 - An API that lets me send send snail mail by posting a PDF and address to an endpoint"
Maybe it slowly gets up to $4,000 with 15 other people contributing to the bounty. That's finally high enough that someone solves it, posts it, collects the bounty, and already has 16 customers.
The bounty idea is a good one, but again, I think it will rapidly become a race to the bottom on price. As soon as the bounty gets to the point where someone in e.g., Eastern Europe thinks it's good money, they'll bid on it even though a dev in SF thinks it's pocket change. I'll bet dollars to doughnuts that in a lot of cases it will happen as soon as the bounty hits $100.
One to get around this problem is to focus on only doing the same kind of work and getting better at doing it quickly so it becomes profitable to you, or doing it in a more Productized Service fashion. But that's a solution to a different problem, not what the OP was asking about.
I think this is the disconnect for me when reading this question. If the question is "where do I find good ideas for my personal tinkering projects" that's one thing, but if you're looking for profitable startup ideas it's not about the engineering - it's about testing quickly and validating the business so the development piece can be much less important (unless of course the business is software tooling)
They do more than just tech problems though, and the solver doesn't really maintain ownership
It's finding folks with a problem and some money that is the challenge. But if you figure it out you're gonna be in a great spot!
Watching it from the outside, I'd say after a while it became "the ideas are decent/worth looking into, but I already have too much on my plate right now that I can't pursue any of it" and the aspiration to follow through is pretty much gone. I think monetizing based on that (and making it worth the time investment) is the big egg we all want to crack.
Anyways props for you for running it for so long! I saw the email and appreciate you taking us on your journey through the lifecycle of it.
I think you're right. There might have been more value in sending out one idea a week and vetting it really well.
There are many technical forums where people ask "how do I do X" or "can anyone help me with Y?" There's often opportunity there to provide a paid solution. Sometimes it's explicitly asked for, other times you have to find out if the poster is open to paying for a solution.
I've been doing this for a while and I generally pick up a few small projects each month, but it takes some time before you get good at seeing which ones are real opportunities and which are just people looking for DIY guidance.
I suspect that if a free site to do this were to emerge, it would quickly end up with the same issues as eLance, Freelancer.com and the rest: race to the bottom on price.
To more specifically address the OP's question: in the past I tried using RentACoder for product ideas by datamining the job postings to see if there was enough overlap in requests that would indicate a product need. Never came up with anything concrete that I wanted to work on :-(
I'd pursue it, but I wouldn't know how to go about finding a first customer for the platform :)
I don't get the 'idea' of selling ideas, however. Surely to be willing to pay for an idea, you'd want to know what it is. And to know what it is would mean you wouldn't have to pay for it.
The only solution I can see to that is some sort of sci fi phenomenon, like entering a room with an 'ideas guy,' whose ideas you evaluate and can agree to buy, before having your memory of what happened in the room wiped.
The value I hope we provide is in summarizing and simplifying major trends in these often overlooked, and sometimes sketchy places. So you don't have to wade through a massive amount of content, that is sometimes offensive, in order to understand what people are talking about.
it's sad that this version of oppsdaily didn't work out, but I think this is a valuable concept. there is a very small market of people who are looking for startup ideas and side projects, but a larger group of customers who would pay to be set up with the services that are peripheral to starting a company.
if you try to approach this concept again, I would subscribe
I'm a person with a big idea surplus, so I'm sure you had the supply end nailed. But who's on the demand end? This may be more related to my personality, but I just don't know anybody who ever is in the state of, "Gosh, I want to do something but have no idea what".
What I definitely did not desire is a bespoke solution. I can go get that from a contracting website.
What I also definitely didn't desire is wanting to research things so I can create a nice opportunity for you. That's a waste of my time. I can just pay someone on Upwork to research for me.
This part of your comment is absolutely key and worth repeating: "My readers told me time and time again that they wanted to be connected to someone who would pay for the idea. That is the real challenge"
DemandRush[1] had this model. You'd post ideas along with how much you were willing to pay for it. It looks like the website[2] was shut down sometime in 2019.
[1] https://www.producthunt.com/posts/demandrush [1] https://www.demandrush.com/
I really enjoyed reading your "Opps Daily" emails. Even though I, like many others, never acted on any of them.
Thanks for your effort here!
-"We found you some investing ideas. We just didnt tell you what kind of ideas they were"
Jonathan R., CFA and Investor "
Hahaha, you're great.
Going to get SSL, privacy etc set up in the coming days, and then do a proper launch.
Just make sure you choose a Personal Risk Tolerance That Works For You.
I will say that ideas are generally far less valuable than a first customer. My readers told me time and time again that they wanted to be connected to someone who would pay for the idea. That is the real challenge, and if you can figure that out, you're going to have a booming business. And I think there is opportunity in the space somewhere between e-lance and just "ideas". Some kind of platform that matches a developer and an initial customer in a way that rewards both. Finding these people is a challenge, but I think it's possible, and the person who figures out how to do it is going to have a MASSIVE business on their hands. I could go on about this a lot further, but I wholly recommend exploring it.
I'm onto my next project now, which interestingly is helping people find investing ideas. We launched yesterday so we'll see how it goes. If you want to chat about the idea space - cory @t topstonks.com or check out the the new project its at http://topstonks.com. Good luck!