Ask HN: How you get Ideas

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10320865

by christopherDam • 11 years ago

11 12 11 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

It looks very stupid question.But I really got frustrated. I really want to do something. I want to spend my time in some productive work.But I am not able to find the ideas for my side project. I want to work on anything which will be worth to give time and if have consumer market that it is really good. I am app developer and have very good knowledge of mobile platform. There are so many thing and stupid apps which makes money. I really want to do something. I do not know how to start. I want to ask this question to you How do you get ideas for your side projects or any thing intrested? How do you know I really want to give time to it ? If you know I really want to give time to it but that thing is really impossible(or great minds solving puzzle) than what you do? How you get motivated to do things? Please help I am getting burn out. Any suggestion help appreciated.

kalid• 11 years ago

I keep an ideas.txt on my computer (synced to my phone in Dropbox). When you're out and something strikes you (something frustrating? interesting? could be made better?) just jot it down. Capture it in the moment, don't wait until the end of the day (you'll forget).

Over time you'll see recurring themes (you get annoyed by the same issues, the same idea gets written down over several weeks) and it'll be somewhat self-motivating to pursue a solution. Your energy ebbs and flows but if an issue bothers you several times it's likely something you care about.

Nicholas_C• 11 years ago

I do the same thing but with a google doc.

I mull over these ideas and decide which ones to pursue. I've accumulated quite a few. I even built a scoring system to decide which ideas to pursue that I was using for a while.

I think the best way to generate ideas is to think about things you're interested in and questions you may have regarding these topics. Write them down immediately in order to preserve and develop them.

christopherDam2• 11 years ago

Have you reach somewhere or built something?

gt565k• 11 years ago

Don't think of ideas that might take off. Just build something that solves a problem for you. If it just so happens that your app solves the same problem for others, it will organically take off.

Sitting down and trying to brainstorm ideas will get you nowhere.

rayalez• 11 years ago

- Read PG's essay on coming up with startup ideas (http://paulgraham.com/startupideas.html) and books on startups (Start Small Stay Small, Lean Startup, Rework, Zero to One, Abundance).

- Read Edward DeBono's "Serious Creativity" - the most brilliant book about generating ideas I've ever encountered. Not about startups or apps in particular, but very interesting.

-There are startup ideas threads on HN:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9836508

and https://www.reddit.com/r/SomebodyMakeThis/

- If you're good at android development - please, PLEASE build a good text editor. It is the most important app for me, the first thing I look for in any new device, and all android text editors suck SO MUCH. I would easily spend $10-$30 if you would build something like Editorial, that would be convenient to use on android smartphone.

-----

- Think if there's something in your life that's missing, some tool that you would like to use, and build that.

- If that fails - think about the perfect niche, about people you like and respect, who use technology and/or could benefit from it; understand them deeply, identify their goals, problems, challenges; and build something for them.

- If that fails - look for a different not tech-related hobby. Like music or writing or woodworking or something like that. Whatever makes you the most curious. That will help you with burnout, and will give you a great niche to work in. Then identify the problems you're facing, and solve them with technology.

- If that fails - talk to other people and ask if there's anything they might need, if there's any problems they have, etc.

- Also - check out new mobile OS'es, like Ubuntu Touch, Firefox OS, etc. These are new, emerging ecosystems, where there's plenty of apps to build. You can simply look at the most successful iOS/Android apps, and copy them to these platforms.

warewolf• 11 years ago

Email me at Braysonware@gmail.com

I have a bunch of ideas, problems to solve.

pavornyoh2• 11 years ago

Ideas come when you are in a really difficult position and need something urgently. You try to find solutions for that problem by trying to see if there is a solution for your particular problem out there. If the solutions out there don't solve your problem, then you come up with your own. Because if the current solutions are not working for you, you can bet it is not working for someone also.

Don't look for an idea just because... If you do that, your enthusiasm for it will/can wane. But if what you are creating solves your own problem, wakes you up at 3am because you are too excited to finally figure it out then you may be unto something.

christopherDam2• 11 years ago

thanks first of all. But I know this. You know most of answers in this post is like that. Try to solve the problem. I know this you know this everybody know this. But the thing is that we do not get problems or we get that are already solved in some form till now. Do not get me wrong. But really I think what to do. What is require which other people have and I do not have. When I saw on github or appstore doing things by other people I feel I can do this and I should do this. But when I try to do that I do not know where to start. You know why because I do not know what to start. I do not want to do which other people alerady done. They are doing something unique and I also want to do that. But do not know what. If any body please help I really appreciate. BTW thanks a lot for your answer.

pavornyoh2• 11 years ago

Perhaps, you are looking too hard? You don't know where to start because you feel the stupid apps are making money hence the need for you to also make some money right?. Is that a fair assessment based on your post? Don't let that be your only motivation for wanting to build or create an app.

A good starting point is to brainstorm whatever you are thinking off and go from there..

Mz• 11 years ago

"We are all dust in the wind"

"We are just dancing on this world for a short time."

A million years from now, no one will know or care what you did with your life. If you do nothing, it matters only to you that you did nothing.

Go for a walk in the park. Go to a movie. Go talk to people outside of your little personal bubble, people whose lives are different from yours. Go try to catch the deluge in a paper cup, drink deeply of it and see what comes of it.

People have all kinds of needs, include things that look "stupid" to you. Many things that seem trivial to an outsider are not trivial to the person engaging in them.

I have a serious medical condition. Playing games is one of the ways I distract myself from pain and keep myself from losing my mind when I feel like hell. Game developers are as important to my quality of life as are medical breakthroughs. Entertainment is hardly a trivial need for me.

There are lots of people in pain, whether physical or emotional. So I am far from the only one who needs distraction or a way to pass the time constructively.

You seem to be getting all bent out of shape over the idea of doing something "important." Just do something. The time passes anyway, whether you did something or nothing with it.

Best of luck.

6d0debc071• 11 years ago

How do you get ideas for your side projects or any thing interested?

Speaking just for myself here:

It's a combination of curiosity and naivety. You know that kiddy question where someone's going "But WHY do it that way?!" That's me. Not on the outside, granted - but it's the same sort of impulse.

Of course, as you get older, you start to learn a lot of the 'whys,' and some of them are sensible. The outstanding 'whys' for your day to day life tend to get resolved to a level that allows you to function one way or another. More precisely, however, they're sensible within a specific context defined by the knowledge and assumptions that the parties involved bring to the table and the limits of the requirements they have for their answers.

So I read, I watch visually interesting films, I listen to talks of people who have interesting thoughts, I learn arts crafts and trades outside of my own to a reasonably functional level - (not quite to the level of making an artistry out of them but to the level where you can perceive why that person's good and you're not and some of the things you'd need to do to approach them.) I try to have a wide context to compare the answers to those 'why' questions to. Because what's sensible in one context isn't in another.

There are other skills involved. There are bits of knowledge that are general tools. For instance maths, formal logic - I'd be inclined to suggest a surprising amount of the study of workflows (not just in a user interface sense) is worth looking at because that's often generally applicable to the why of things, etc.

I digress: The majority of the 'why' questions have sensible answers. The world would not function acceptably otherwise. That's fine from the perspective of intellectual exploration. If you're wrong you get an answer that will let you ask more 'why' questions, and if you're right you get another answer - difficult to lose with those outcomes.

Every so often a 'why' comes along where the answer doesn't make sense in the context that you've got, and then you've got an idea that's worth trying out. Seeing whether you can take the thing from that other context and put it in the context that seems wrong. Take one concept from one place and use it here instead. That just seems natural when it happens. Ideas seem like it's the other people who've gone off into crazy land, or missed something. For me, it's the same feeling from when I was little and the parents would go 'BECAUSE! Now I've got to go to work!'

And if that idea comes to nothing, no biggy. There'll be another idea along in a little bit.

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I'd reiterate I'm speaking just for myself there. It's a thing that seems to work for me, it may not be the optimal thing and it may not work that well or that way for others.

eb0la• 11 years ago

Go to freelancer or a similar site and take a look at what people wants to pay for.

Browsing there 2-4 hours will help you know where's some demand (with cash) and what you can do to aggregate that demand into an interesting project that works for you.

Ask HN: How you get Ideas

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