You probably already heard this, but if you are doing a product, not “research”, that something has been already done, needn’t be a deterrent.

It just as well may indicate there’s room in the market for yet another twist on a similar thing.

In fact if something like it is already in the market, that's a very good sign. It validates that there is a market.

The way I frame it, is that practically any business idea is viable. It doesn't have to be novel, or world-changing, unless your goal is to create a multi-billion dollar monopoly on day 1. There is space for more than one thing in the world.

The difference between a successful business and a failed startup is how much effort you put into it, considering that a solo or a startup is exponentially more nimble than an established player at identifying and focusing on a novel approach to an old problem.

The classic Silicon Valley/Paul Graham advice of "validate an idea and don't write a line of code until you have signed 10 clients" is a good approach only iff your job is creating ideas and putting the least possible effort in each one. This is the Twitter indiehacker approach. But if you only have one good idea that you believe in, that scratches your own itch, just build it. Don't spend ages to build it, try to market it ASAP, but how much effort you put into it is more important than how game changing your idea is.

This is my plan at least, and no successful business just yet to say if this approach is valid, but it agrees with my reading of the business, indie hacker and startup world.

Just don't create another productivity app. That's the most saturated field in the entire space, and for some reason 90% of indie hackers have built yet another calendar/todo hybrid, wondering why no one cares.