Criteria For The Right Idea at the Right Time

[Oliver]

I think there’s an interesting flip side to this though. Since you’re a developer, you can bring a lot of value to a space that lacks the tech that we see every day in our bubble. Plus, going into a “foreign” market can be a massive learning experience, especially when you’re not launching and testing stuff to your peers.

Hey Brian, I’d be very wary of going into “foreign” markets. The danger is the “unknown unknowns”. There could be many roadblocks on your path to success, or even fatal flaws in your idea or business model, that you will not be able to predict because you just aren’t a knowledgeable person in that field. That leads to delays and setbacks and product rewrites and it’s not fun, believe me.

Serves people like me and/or a group I empathize with

I think this is the right idea. I would add to your list that you should have a deep understanding of the market. Not just the problem/solution, but you also know of the other players in the market and how they are perceived, how the market is divided among people with different views of how things should be done, established best practices, how things actually work, trends, where does the money come from? where does it go? Etc…

[steve]

[quote=“Oliver, post:22, topic:2652”]
Hey Brian, I’d be very wary of going into “foreign” markets. The danger is the “unknown unknowns”. There could be many roadblocks on your path to success, or even fatal flaws in your idea or business model, that you will not be able to predict because you just aren’t a knowledgeable person in that field. That leads to delays and setbacks and product rewrites and it’s not fun, believe me.
[/quote]All of this is why you gather information and start marketing before you start coding, start with a small set of customers, start with a manual process if possible, have a corporation for a little legal protection, and don’t bet everything you have on a new product. IMO they’re not reasons to avoid currently unfamiliar markets.

I was in a meeting with two IBMers who had each been there for decades. One said IBM always did something one way, and the other said no, IBM always did it a different way. So even if you think you know a market, chances are part of that market will have ‘crazy’ needs which will blindside you.

[manuelflara]

I think with the developer market, though, you need to create something obviously very useful AND not “small”. If it doesn’t take a lot to create from scratch, a lot of developers will fall prey of the “why would I pay for that when I can build it myself in a weekend” mentality, even though they’ll probably never build it themselves. But they won’t be able to justify paying money for it either. I think that’s what @kalenjordan was referring to.

[Oliver]

start with a small set of customers,

Just getting that first tiny set of customers can be a long road for bootstrappers. Especially when you need to go find these people in a market you are not connected to. That phase could be long enough and expensive enough to make it very hard for a bootstrapper to regroup and start again.

In a foreign market you increase your time to revenues (because of the additional research and discovery phase) and you increase your costs (more “uphill” marketing) and you increase your risks because of the unknowns.

It seems abundantly clear to me that when weighing how good ideas are the ones that are in markets that you know intimately well are far better than the ones that are in markets you know little about.

[steve]

@Oliver, I take it you are not saying developer bootstrappers should only develop products for other developers. So I think we’re just arguing about degree of difficulty of foreign markets (of course they’re more difficult to some degree). I’m happy to agree to disagree at this point.