Solution in search of a problem
The Litmus test for building ideas you actually care about.
It’s late Saturday evening, June 1st, and I’m in my living room.
The TV is on in the background, the kids are asleep.
My wife turns to me and asks “any idea what you’re building for this month?”.
She knows that the start of the month means it’s time for a new project on my journey of building 12 products in 12 months for 2024.
“Good question.” I say.
Mind you, I’m just a few hours removed from an absolute mad dash to get my May project, Domain Copilot, out the door.
But I’ll save that for another post.
So yeah — what am I going to build for June.
I crack open my laptop and open up my “build list” and start going through some of the more recent idea.
This is the spot where I jot down all the ideas I might want to build. Some better than most.
As I’m talking through some of the ideas, we’re filling the gaps talking about an upcoming trip to the tropics.
This is our first proper vacation in a long time, and with a 1.5yr old and a 6mo. old, we’re definitely ready.
With all this vacation talk going on, we start talking about how it’d be great to plan a vacation with friends.
Y’know, not just a weekend getaway, but more of a sit-by-the-pool, drink-in-my-hand, in-some-tropical-location, week-long type of vacation with friends..
By now my idea juices are flowing.
The build list is open, we’re talking about vacations.
Naturally my maker mind is pulled in that direction.
“I’ve know! What about an app where you can plan trips with your friends?” I say.
My wife, humoring me “That sounds like a cool idea.”.
Friends can suggest trip destinations, budgets, the whole-nine.
Friends can opt-out if the timing of the trip isn’t right. Friends can invite their friends.
And so on.
The app would have an inherent viral component baked in to it’s DNA.
Brilliant!
So I say to my wife, “Someone has to have built this already.”
Sure enough, someone has.
In fact, many people have.
I found a small handful of these apps in the first 10 seconds of searching Google.
And I’m sure I’d uncover more if I kept looking.
So what did I do next?
Well, nothing.
I didn’t even download the app to check it out. I just discarded the idea as if it was an old toy.
And that’s when it hit me.
This is a great Litmus test for these types of fleeting ideas.
This idea was simply a solution in search of a problem.
As a builder in search of an idea. This sounded great.
As an end user, this idea felt like an unnecessary tool.
In reality, I’d rather just start a group chat if we we’re going to plan a trip with friends.
Sure, an app for this niche problem might add some value somewhere along the lines, but is it something I want to build?
Well, it sounded good in the moment. But at the end of the day, no.
That’s where a lot of us end up wasting our time, building things that no one really cares about, sometimes things that we don’t even really care about.
So before you build that next idea, have an honest conversation with yourself:
Would I really use this app?