Find me a date
A dating app synced with a wearable ring. When you’re in proximity to a match, your ring glows brighter the closer you get.

People buy 4 things and 4 things only. Ever. Those 4 things are time, money, sex, and approval/peace of mind. If you try selling something other than those 4 things you will fail.
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In which category video games fall into in your opinion?

It's been a while since the latest post, so I'm sharing some useful links to go down the rabbit hole. Some of them may seem to not be related to startups or businesses directly, but advice there can affect this mindset implicitly.

- The Pmarca guide to startups
- Ask HN: Successful one-person online businesses?
- Ask HN: What's the most valuable thing you can learn in an hour?
- Ask HN: What are your “brain hacks” that help you manage everyday situations?
- Ask HN: What's a promising area to work on?
- Startup idea checklist

Idea: Digital Graffiti
Using AR you can "tag" any location in the world and paint on it. It can only be seen holding a phone up to it.

Example: go to a supermarket, hold up your phone and draw all over the cereal aisle. Anyone who has the app can hold up their phone and see your art through the app. It's like having a different layer of the world.

Opportunity: health care optimization
How many industries do you think can be optimized by involving technology to increase their efficiency?
For instance, let's take the health care system.

As described by TechOpinions, “the actual medical care system is not significantly more efficient than it was 10 or 20 years ago. Yes, there are now electronic medical records, and some consumers have access to their health history online. But the process of booking appointments, getting a referral, determining the price of a service, or determining the efficacy of a physician or the quality of a hospital or other treatment facility remains a rather arcane process.” While capital intensive, is there a potential alternative or opportunity to roll up a healthcare system in a rural part of the country and begin experimenting with tech optimization? There are currently over 6,090 hospitals in the United States with 2,946 Nongovernment Not-for-Profit Community Hospitals and 1,233 Investor-Owned (For-Profit) Community Hospitals. Given that there is a market, this business would double-down on capturing a larger more efficient share of the investor-owned community hospitals that exist.

We had an idea posted here about ERP systems that are super outdated, expensive, time-consuming, but health care units use them because of a conservative monopoly in the market. There are still businesses in, for example, rural areas where you can implement such a system, which will be not so expensive, more efficient, user-friendly, and yield profits.

idea: Convenient CV
A tool that helps to manage your CVs and keep them up to date. The problem is to update them: you need to edit PDFs manually by adding new experience and changing skills level and so on. The tool should help you to eliminate the pain.
It's like versioning your resume.

What is a minimal viable product(MVP)?

So, you have this idea that sparked a lot of interest in you. It may or may not do the same for the other people you're gonna show your project. That's why people do MVPs. To test something quickly: build and get feedback to understand whether to proceed further. You may love the idea but no one else does so.
*Why it's minimal?* Imagine the idea you love and want to build. How many days you should spend creating a working prototype? Let's calculate: 4 features, plus 3 integrations, and a possibility to pay in all countries, and one more feature to show cool analytics, and awesome UI, and..., and... Hmm, it'd take you 9 months. Fine! You've built it in 13 months(some unexpected adjustments here and there). You released it to an alpha test and it occurred no one is interested.

You may say it's due to a lack of sufficient market research. You're right, let's do the research then. You did it and figured out that your target customers are private teachers in small schools. You talked to many of them and asked about the problem you try to solve. You did all the right things. Then, it's time to build something, right? So you've decided that in this case, it'll be fine to spend 13 months building a solution. You built it, showed it to the target potential customers and it turned out your solution doesn't address the problem they have. They would solve it differently! Fine, you collected the feedback and rectified your MVP in 2 months. Then, you repeated the release-get feedback cycle a few times spending a year overall to get a few people who want to use your solution. So, it's 2+ years just to build an MVP that people can use?

The main point in the MVP concept is to iterate fast. You build something fast, show it to your potential users, collect feedback on what's wrong, adjust the solution. Do this multiple times and you get a few users. Then more until a product-market fit where your problem is scalability.

We welcome new members of this channel!
I want to remind the primary goal of it: it's a collection of ideas that may be turned into a business or side project. It doesn't mean they are unique. Most of them(if not all) are already implemented by someone.

Ideas are worthless. By sharing them I want to encourage you to think about a niche and the people they're about. Therefore, to dive deeper and learn more about the industry and its potential problems.

Businesses aren't built on ideas, they solve a problem. Use this channel for inspiration and research extra information to understand what kind of problems you might solve. The more critical they are to the people, the more value you provide to them, the more money they're ready to pay you.

If you need help or want to say hi, reply in the comments to this post.

Gratitude net
An app that tracks your gratitude feelings where you may point target people, so they'll get notified, though all of that is anonymous. Or, there is a possibility to not be anonymous, and people will receive messages saying you're grateful to them.

Idea: A cloud-based SaaS app that will let users create and share excellent, on-brand transactional documents like invoices, receipts, bills, quotes, orders, contracts, agreements, shipping documents and so on very easily and within minimal time. The app will provide lots of templates and 100% automation to make it possible to deliver transactional documents instantly.

The problem:
• Creating an excellent, transactional document is complex work, requires skill and time consuming.
• Existing solutions offer too limited necessities e.g. professional templates, e-stamps and branding to make outstanding documents
• Existing solutions are too complex to use for the average individual.

Hi there, sorry for not publishing regularly, I've moved to a new country and these weeks are busy. I plan to post more from the next week.

Here is a problem for you: it's difficult to start blogging if you're not a technical person, it's not easy to understand whether this activity is for you and will be beneficial or profitable either.
Many companies try to solve this through:
- tools that simplify the process of creating a blog: Ghost, Wordpress, livejournal.
- consultancy services for the technical side of the question(how to host, where) and for SEO questions(how to promote, how to be searchable, what to write about).

It'd be better to combine these services together and provide a "just help me to start a blog" solution. Not multiple different ones that you use because a consultant you paid for told you how it all work: a blog engine, a server to run it, a tech person to set up it, a keyword research tool, a SEO course.
Can I, as a motivated to publish my thoughts person, just start doing it and not paying for multiple services and understand whether it'd be fine for me in a perspective?

Share your thoughts in the comments, I'll share a potential solution later.

💡A potential solution to the previous post's problem: Just give me a blog.

TL;DR: combine all the tools bloggers use in one place and simplify all of them for non-technical people.

There are many parts of it, I'm breaking them down:
1. A potential blogger wants to understand if this activity is for him/her. ("Can I make money with my blog?", "How it'll look like?", "What opportunities will be opened for me after I start blogging?"). Hence, we should organize bloggers' stories. Tell people how some person started blogging and made $400 from ads after a year, what do publish about, what was their initial goal. Tell people how the other person didn't earn anything after 2 years, but publishing regularly about animals' diseases and thus helping a science community. Also, this person was offered a job. And many more such various stories: how do some earn money from ads, the others earn by allowing sponsor links, etc. How others were given interesting opportunities like a job. Or, met great people on the Internet. What do they publish about, how frequently, what are their blogs' statistics, etc. Wannabe bloggers should understand what to expect and if this activity is for them.

2. If the person decides to start a blog, then the solution should simplify the whole process:
a) no separate service to buy a domain. Check the domain availability and buy it instantly there, on our imaginary solution's website.
b) choose a blog's website design also there: many templates for many use cases. Choose one and see a preview immediately on the bought domain's address.
c) at this point, the blog is ready. Now it's time to customize it.

3. The solution set up an admin space for the author. With a dashboard, built-in website analytics(speed, SEO issues, visitors count, etc.), tools to write a post, check it with Grammarly-like tools(spelling, synonyms, overall readability). Also, there are other great-value SEO-related tools:
- to analyze competitors' blogs, see what do they publicize about, how many visitors and earnings do they have;
- analyze a niche an author wants to publish in: what are the popular keywords, what sort of articles do people look for, estimated visitors for every article, and many more metrics.

Here's what my process looks like, though I'm a technician:

- I search for and buy a domain. No big deal.
- I set up a server in a cloud(DigitalOcean): I run a Ghost blog container there. Not a big deal for me, but it takes time, and is a big deal for non-technical people. Of course, others may choose something else(other blog engines).
- I "connect" my bought domain to a server in a DigitalOcean panel. Then, Nginx configuration and SSL certificates setup(for HTTPS traffic).
- I connect Google Analytics for website metrics. But ideally, I'd go with something else. Many people and some browsers(like Brave) block GA. Thus, the website visitors' count isn't a complete number. For other websites, I use umami(open-sourced, free), and it requires another server and a bit of coding(putting a script to pages).
- I use many SEO-related tools to do keywords research, analyze my niche.
I update my blog engine periodically, change a theme design, text, or something else. Plus, spell-checking for every post(not only Grammarly but other tools).

Overall, it takes time for a technical person. Imagine how much time such a solution might save for non-technical(and technical) people.

Idea: Mobile game templates
A platform that provides templates to make a mobile game. By template, I mean an automated flow with pre-defined steps, visual effects, mechanics, but you can change them with your text, graphics, etc.
For instance, there are templates for text-based games where you can create a plot and a player takes particular actions that lead to a specific plotline. Like, an interactive book.

This platform may begin with one template and add other later, if necessary. Even creating games with one template would save developers a lot of time.

Opportunity: Health care optimization
How many industries do you think can be optimized by involving technology to increase their efficiency?
For instance, let's take the health care system.

As described by TechOpinions, “the actual medical care system is not significantly more efficient than it was 10 or 20 years ago. Yes, there are now electronic medical records, and some consumers have access to their health history online. But the process of booking appointments, getting a referral, determining the price of a service, or determining the efficacy of a physician or the quality of a hospital or other treatment facility remains a rather arcane process.” While capital intensive, is there a potential alternative or opportunity to roll up a healthcare system in a rural part of the country and begin experimenting with tech optimization? There are currently over 6,090 hospitals in the United States with 2,946 Nongovernment Not-for-Profit Community Hospitals and 1,233 Investor-Owned (For-Profit) Community Hospitals. Given that there is a market, this business would double down on capturing a larger more efficient share of the investor-owned community hospitals that exist.

We had an idea posted here about ERP systems that are super outdated, expensive, time-consuming, but health care units use them because of a conservative monopoly in the market. There are still businesses in, for example, rural areas where you can implement such a system, which will be not so expensive, more efficient, user-friendly, and yield profits.

Idea: Text rephraser
It is a service that allows you to rewrite a blog post and a copy to make it look and feel different. Or, maybe you create a new blog article and think about rewriting some old posts.

There are two types of solutions for this:
- Replace words with synonyms. In this case, the text and its structure are the same.
- Use ML tools that do the same, but they replace phrases and change sentences' structure.
We need something more like (2) but more advanced. Currently, such tools are limited, and you need to spend much time refactoring the text.
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I'm working on a new blog where I talk about Telegram as well.

Idea: Video editing tool
Not just an idea, it's a trend. People seek simple video editing software. Of course, there are a lot of them. But you can create an app aimed at niche users. For example, tiktokers. Or, courses tutors, students in Asia, etc. The video tools we have currently are for the wide public and oftentimes they're full of unnecessary things, UI is complex and rendering/preview is slow. Is there a space for improvement? For sure.
You may dive deeper and create something like an app that edits short videos by adding a music track, a few visual effects, it allows uploading directly to TikTok. Aimed at tiktokers from Germany.

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FYI, the most expensive Duck was sold for $245,440, while you have a chance to grab it for free🤯

How in the world is it possible?

1. Quote the tweet with #WavesArmy hashtag
2. Write any comment under that tweet
3. Join Telegram

Your free duck is a step away 🔥 Let the whole world stop and check the tweet of Waves Protocol!

Deadline❗️ 1pm EST April 5th

Resource: Y Combinator Startup Library

This is a huge golden gem of the resources for founders and people who think to start something, change, improve, succeed.
They consolidated the information for 15 years and give it to you! Prepare a few days or weeks to read/watch the materials!

Idea: Password change reminder
A feature in password manager apps or a new extension that notifies you about changing a password when you open a website. The tool proposes a new password and a button be clicked that will find the password change form and fill the data automatically.

It can be a separate browser extension though. It may also notify users when some breach happened or sensitive data is leaked somewhere. Thus, the extension's users will react first.
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Win 5 jackpot ducks from Waves protocol in 5 min

Idea: Learning a language by songs
An app to learn a language vocabulary(mostly) by songs. It matches words with songs that have them. Thus, it becomes better to memorize vocabulary. As you know, songs can be highly attached and easy to recall.

Finding a problem
or How to find business problems and the ones you have

You're going to have to brainstorm. Some people recommend that you just sit around waiting for inspiration to strike. I don't. That might take years, if not forever. Be proactive.

It's hard to say where the best place to start brainstorming is, not because there are so few, but because there are so many. There are thousands of good problems out there, and practically anything can trigger you to stumble across one.

What's more important is that you recognize a good problem when you see one, and vice versa. If a problem scores poorly on the guidelines above, don't waste your time. Keep brainstorming.

For that reason, it makes sense to start with one of these guidelines in mind, and let that be your trigger. For example, since it's helpful to solve a problem that you have yourself, why not take a look at your own life and see if you can spot any problems. What worries you, exasperates you, or annoys you?

The other guidelines also work well as brainstorming triggers. Who do you like spending time with? What groups are you a part of? What are some problems you notice people solving frequently? What's something that seems to be growing into a bigger trend?

My personal favorite is to start by looking at where people are already spending lots of time and money and go from there. Money changing hands is almost always a sign that there's a valuable problem being solved.

Avoid Fatal Mistakes

Founders typically have already made one or two huge mistakes by this point. If you can avoid these, you'll be way ahead before you've even started.

Starting with a solution in mind. I've mentioned this already, but it's worth repeating. You need to be honest with yourself here, because this is sometimes subtle. If you're already attached to a particular idea for a product, technology, or set of features that you want to build, that's going to ruin your ability to find a solid problem and analyze it objectively. You've put the solution first, and it's blinding you to opportunities.
Ruling out already-solved problems.
Nothing in the guidelines above says that a good problem is one that nobody is solving. In fact, the opposite is usually true. Almost all successful businesses start by tackling problems that have popular, pre-existing, alternative solutions. Way too many founders attempt to solve unsolved problems, then get stuck. These problems are often unsolved because they're unimportant and people don't care.

Being afraid to solve high-value problems. Indie hackers in particular are notorious for only tackling cheap, low-value problems. You don't have to sell something for cheap to have a chance at success. That's backwards. It's actually harder to sell cheap things, because people care less. I've bought more cars than back scratchers in my life. It doesn't matter that you're a small, scrappy startup. I've met 2-person teams selling their software for $10,000 per year per customer. Pick a high-value problem and charge a high price.

Not having a specific customer in mind. If you can't articulate whose problem you're solving, how is your website going to articulate it? If you want to wait and see who the best customer turns out to be, that sounds a lot like a key looking for a lock. If you think your product is for everyone, it's probably for nobody. If you describe your target customer by combining a bunch of attributes (e.g. "iOS users who need to get tasks done but prefer modern, clean UIs"), that's not an actual group of people. You're just describing the features of a product you're already biased toward building.

Some of these points are a bit counterintuitive. That's why so many generations of smart-but-uninformed indie hackers are repeating the mistakes of their predecessors.

But it's simple to avoid these kinds of mistakes once you know them. It's more a more a matter of knowledge and discipline, rather than genius or hard work.