
Finding My Next Bootstrapped Business Idea - derrickreimer
https://www.derrickreimer.com/essays/2019/05/28/finding-my-next-bootstrapped-business-idea.html
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ksj2114
"The market must already exist". I think trying to find a brand new market is
one of the biggest mistakes many founders make when trying to come up with a
startup idea. An existing market indicates that demand already exists!

And when "no market need" is the most common reason startups fail [1], this
seems to be often overlooked.

[1] [https://www.cbinsights.com/research/startup-failure-
reasons-...](https://www.cbinsights.com/research/startup-failure-reasons-top/)

~~~
avinium
You're exactly right, but I think the real world is even more more nuanced
than that (particularly when it comes to software).

Some markets just don't exist, period. Think nail polish for pet turtles. It's
easy to figure this out, because every pet turtle owner tells you "I wouldn't
buy this". There's no two ways about it. You know exactly where you stand.

This is infinitely better than the alternative, which is selling a product
that kind-of fits, to a market that kind-of exists. You've identified a
problem, everyone is saying "great idea, love the design, etc" \- but hardly
anyone's buying. They all stall, or come up with excuses as to why they can't
buy, even though they say the product is great.

Both are cases of "no market demand", but the former is an infinitely better
place to be. You know exactly where you stand and what needs to be done -
scrap everything and start over.

The latter is a very dangerous place to be. It's easy to give yourself any
number of options - "maybe we just need a (UI redesign|new website|better
marketing materials)". But fundamentally, the product is flawed. You haven't
really found a market need. Odds are you've identified a _market want_. This
is something that's nice for people to have (and that they might be happy to
use). But it's not compelling enough to reach into your pocket and pay for.

This is an acute problem in software because

(a) we tend to be builders at heart, so we favour making things over
identifying customer needs.

(b) it's relatively cheap to build something. Other industries have
significantly higher barriers to entry, meaning you (usually) need to secure
customers and funding before the production/manufacturing phase.

~~~
derrickreimer
Great points here. It's very tricky to get accurate information from potential
customers. The fact that there is demand for what you want to build is a
necessary, but not sufficient quality -- you must dig deeper to make sure the
pain is bad enough for someone to adopt your product / switch from whatever
they are doing now. I have to remind myself of this constantly :).

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mrskitch
Hey Derrick! I don't have much to say, except that I really enjoyed your
site's design. Good luck!

EDIT: Now that I've read through your article: I'm the founder behind
browserless.io. Your outline is great, and is the same rough rubric I've used
before. If you ever want to chat about anything, let me know! You're totally
right: this thing is hard, and having more successes/failures doesn't make it
any easier sadly. Lot's of dice rolling and trying.

~~~
derrickreimer
Thank you!

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jguimont
I would like to know your opinion on "When to drop the ball when trying to
build a business?" You need to persevere, but like playing poker, you invested
so much energy that it might be hard to pull the plug. Success might be just
around the corner...

~~~
derrickreimer
Totally! To clarify, by the "drop the ball" do you mean knowing when to call
it quits if something is not working out? I recently wrote about my experience
with that: [https://www.derrickreimer.com/essays/2019/05/17/im-
walking-a...](https://www.derrickreimer.com/essays/2019/05/17/im-walking-away-
from-the-product-i-spent-a-year-building.html)

My friend Justin Jackson also published a good article about this too:
[https://justinjackson.ca/giveup](https://justinjackson.ca/giveup)

~~~
hmhrex
Thanks to you, I finally read The Mom Test. It was extremely insightful
alongside your written experience.

~~~
derrickreimer
That's awesome!

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realty_geek
Hi Derrick, looking at the criteria you listed I would say you probably could
find some interesting ideas in the real estate sector. I created an open
source real estate website builder and though that hasn't made me any money,
it got me enough contacts and insights into the sector to make me realise how
much potential there is there.

I am happy to have a chat if you want to know more. My plan is to launch a
product in that space in the next 6 months

~~~
mooreds
I worked for a real estate company for a number of years and have watched the
behavior of agents over a longer period of time.

I'd advise anyone working in the software side of real estate to target anyone
other than real estate agents (brokers, title, inspectors, etc) as customers.
The churn is punishing, there's a lot of competition and many agents do a
small number of deals/year.

~~~
bdcravens
I'd second this. I've seen several people get their agent license in recent
years, and most of them have additional jobs. (meaning they're not generating
as much income as an agent as they'd need to do it full time) It's a very
flooded market.

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joelhaus
Agreed. Just launched my company to help the types of agents you're talking
about: GeneralReferral.com

Brings technology to an underinvested corner of the traditional brokerage.

Could use some marketing help...

~~~
MoveMyMobile
I work as an agent in the commercial real estate space. Usually referrals
happen when one agent who let's say specializes in office (for example) finds
a lead/listing in Industrial, multifamily, etc (That they aren't well versed
in). Usually I've noticed 20% (of the commission) is about the standard fee if
you get them a listing. Most often however referrals aren't concrete and no
sale actually comes out of it. This is because you have to convince the owner
to sign a listing with the person you are referring and they are probably
already getting contacted by competing brokers who already specialize in the
space. I've only had 1-2 referrals work out for me. You'd want some kind of
way for agents to list their specialty and maybe a list of done deals (of that
property type) to show experience. I've noticed on the commercial side that
Generalists (Who do everything) NEVER get referrals. No one will refer for
example the sale of an office building to an agent that lists everything, the
refer to the office broker who specializes in it. I have an idea for a Real
Estate site (I've put it on the back-burner) that nobody is doing right now
because from my experience the tech savvy guys who can build this kind of
thing are not privy to the high end investment sales market (Investment
properties that are at least $2 million) There is a certain culture and way of
doing things that isn't really easy to understand unless you've worked in it.

~~~
vladsanchez
I work in R/E Analytics, email me: vlad.sanchez@gmail.com

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listenandlearn
Hey Derrick,

Thanks for the great posts and for responding to comments!

Would love some feedback on choosing to raise money or not. I read this post
(and many others) about having those filters ready ahead of time. The filter
on raising money unfortunately I don’t have, I keep going back and fourth on
that.

I have been working on an app, cross platform iOS and Android, that lets
people listen to articles from the web. It uses great sounding AI ML to
convert the articles to audio you can listen to in seconds.

I have been working on it for a few months have some good traction and a few
paid users, working on it part time as a side project. I can’t help but feel
that raising money would allow me to go full time and really concentrate while
still affording my bills. The issue is VC money comes with strings.

(Shameless plug for anyone interested, the product is here
[https://articulu.com](https://articulu.com) )

~~~
absk82
Your website looks great. I didn't try the product. Can I ask how you did the
design and UI of your landing page? Did you do it yourself or contracted
someone to do it?

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listenandlearn
Thanks for the feedback, we did everything ourselves. Two of us on this with
developer backgrounds.

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desireco42
Completely unrelated...

When developer makes a blog, and it has UX well done, it is amazing. Site
looks good from the outside, as well as inside the source, nothing insane, but
you can see quality.

I am inspired now to make my own, that lays neglected for long time.

Oh, now I see that he is using Elixir, Elm, Phoenix etc... All the good stuff.
:) Clearly a person with great taste.

~~~
derrickreimer
Thank you! It happens to the best of us, I haven't been super consistent with
writing regularly. Trying to change that!

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GreeniFi
This is a great article. I’d advise any entrepreneur to read this, including
myself 6 years ago.

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kim0
I'm trying to launch a graphql hosting business on gqlengine.com .. validating
whether there is a "market" is too hard for me to figure out it seems! If
anyone is interested to partner and work with me on this, shout out at me
@ak_kim0

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Alonski
Good luck! Love listening to you and have been following your journey for a
long time. I'm here to listen and watch what you build next. Who knows maybe
I'll be a customer.

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derrickreimer
Thanks! Glad you are finding it helpful!

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benackles
Correct link: [https://www.derrickreimer.com/essays/2019/05/28/finding-
my-n...](https://www.derrickreimer.com/essays/2019/05/28/finding-my-next-
bootstrapped-business-idea.html)

~~~
derrickreimer
Thank you! I also added a redirect from the previous URL.

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docker_up
I find articles like this deeply disingenuous. The OP wants to basically find
some problem that he doesn't know anything about, and apply whatever knowledge
he has gained in hopes of building a "company" which appears to me is just a
facade of a company until he can flip it to someone else who actually cares
more.

The idea that someone with presumably no knowledge or even any passion can dip
their toe into a problem space and try to create a "company" isn't very
appealing to me at all. Everything about it feels so superficial and contrived
with no passion.

Even the list he came up with is so low-hanging-fruit, it reads to me "I want
something that is easy to build, easy to sell and makes me lots of money
before I flip it to someone else, and then I can start the process again."

The lack of commitment and conviction screams to me that I shouldn't become a
customer because he will abandon the project, and end it with another "Thanks
for following me on my journey, I'm abandoning all my customers but join me on
my next adventure soon!"

~~~
derrickreimer
Ouch. That's not at all what I'm trying to do. I have no shortage of passion,
but passion alone does not make a viable business.

My hope is that my post will help others think about choosing an idea that
fits with their goals, so that it will work out for the long haul.

