Ask HN: Worth working on a project that you have no direct relationship with?

3 points by alexcason 10 years ago | 5 comments

My current scenario is that I have an idea for a project. The next logical step is to validate that the idea solves an actual problem and that people would actually pay for it.

The problem is that the idea isn't really something which I can validate by myself or by asking people that I know. I'd need to go out and find the target audience and ask them.

Is this worth doing or would it be better to focus on an idea which I know is a problem myself or which someone I have a relationship with knows is a problem?

brudgers 10 years ago |

It's worth working on a project you care about. It's ok if the manner in which you care is that you care about making a lot of money and that the problem you are solving is one that you don't care about directly...but it's probably harder to maintain caring only about the money over the long term.

The big problem is it's easier to care about the solution than the problem because coding is fun and other people's problems tend not to be fun. This leads to imagining problems that other people have and building solutions to those imaginary problems instead of actual problems. So it probably helps to start from caring about the people and then the problems they care about matter more than the solutions to problems you imagine they have.

It's even easy to solve problems that you imagine you have...because again, coding is fun and people's problems, especially your own problems, aren't.

tl;dr Do something for someone you care about that that person cares about. It doesn't really matter the person you care about is you or someone else.

Good luck.

LarryMade2 10 years ago |

Doesn’t hurt to ask - I had an inkling of an idea that involved real estate, so found a real estate person locally and asked them a few questions - learned a few things about how it works I didn’t know and realized it wasn't a priority for what I was doing.

Main thing is you don't have to find some bigwig, start with some informal conversation with a small player to get some perspective first.

Working on something you know is a problem yourself works great. Doesn't hurt to ask people in other fields if your other ideas are valid, and if they are you then have to ask yourself "is it worth your time to get excited bout them?"

drl42 10 years ago |

If the idea is a B2C kind of business - Run a facebook ad campaign with the target audience. You can direct them to a landing page and collect email addresses/ other details. Facebook pretty much has a global reach, so you should get some validation points.

For more of B2B ideas - You are better off talking to people directly. Mine you network. Look for conferences, meetups, tradeshows where you might find your audience

tmaly 10 years ago |

Finding the target audience is a problem in itself. If it is in a professional industry, maybe finding a forum or using a paid linkedin account to reach out to people might help.

partisan 10 years ago |

Maybe set up a landing page to gauge interest? It really depends on how niche your target audience is. You could also pick one particular person/company in your niche and introduce yourself. This is hard, but it sounds like you will have to do that every step of the way and if you can't see yourself doing it then this is the deal breaker.