A bit unconventional..but I picked the kind of problems I like solving/working on and then looked at how those interests could align with a business perspective. Keep in mind my target was doing something with NLP which in general you can find what industries NLP is good at solving problems for. For general web development and some kind a CRUD app, this may not be applicable.
It took a bit of market research to align the two, but once I did it was great. With the idea itself, I just had a few simple metrics:
1. B2B (I have a raw hate for B2C just due to how much harder they are and it's harder to get a sustainable business off the ground vs businesses that just pay money)
2. Repeatable revenue source: subscription based services are easy to forecast, and you typically need 3 tiers for a pricing scheme to segment customers.
3. Ease of validation: Business problems are easy to predict. You have to ask the right questions, but your only real criteria has to be: Does this save the customer money or time? If it does, you only have to survey some different businesses to ensure the idea is wanted by enough of them. Congrats, you have something.
For customer development, just do some google searches in your target niche and start firing off some emails. Better yet: try to find where these customers gather. Whether it be on support forums, or even freelancing market places.
That's how zapier took off if I remember right. In my case, I had a lot of luck with freelancing forums since I'm looking to automate certain tasks that virtual assistants usually do.
A bit of a simplistic explanation, but easy enough to get started. What might work for me might not work for others, but there it is.
Comments
A bit unconventional..but I picked the kind of problems I like solving/working on and then looked at how those interests could align with a business perspective. Keep in mind my target was doing something with NLP which in general you can find what industries NLP is good at solving problems for. For general web development and some kind a CRUD app, this may not be applicable.
It took a bit of market research to align the two, but once I did it was great. With the idea itself, I just had a few simple metrics:
1. B2B (I have a raw hate for B2C just due to how much harder they are and it's harder to get a sustainable business off the ground vs businesses that just pay money)
2. Repeatable revenue source: subscription based services are easy to forecast, and you typically need 3 tiers for a pricing scheme to segment customers.
3. Ease of validation: Business problems are easy to predict. You have to ask the right questions, but your only real criteria has to be: Does this save the customer money or time? If it does, you only have to survey some different businesses to ensure the idea is wanted by enough of them. Congrats, you have something.
For customer development, just do some google searches in your target niche and start firing off some emails. Better yet: try to find where these customers gather. Whether it be on support forums, or even freelancing market places.
That's how zapier took off if I remember right. In my case, I had a lot of luck with freelancing forums since I'm looking to automate certain tasks that virtual assistants usually do.
A bit of a simplistic explanation, but easy enough to get started. What might work for me might not work for others, but there it is.