

Ask HN: How can I make something which people appreciate? - bbastian

It's one of my dreams to make something which makes someone who I don't know say, "Wow! That's cool!" Either that or build a community. Or both! However, I'm unsure how to do that. I think that I'd like it to be something web-based because of the wide audience which the medium offers. Can anyone give me some advice on how to accomplish this goal?
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imp
I did that on a small scale, sort of accidentally, and dozens of people have
emailed me with the equivalent of "Wow! That's cool!" It has also developed
into a small, active community.

Although customer development is great and popular right now, what I did
didn't use any customer development. It also wasn't originally intended as a
business either, but your post doesn't mention anything about money :)

I took an existing web application and gave it a great user interface. That's
it. If you can take an application that already exists and make it:

* 10X easier to use

* 10X more fun to use

* 3X faster to use

* Free

then you'll grow to thousands of users via word of mouth and your users will
love you.

The easy part about it is choosing the application. Anything that you
currently use that's cludgy can probably be improved a whole lot. The
difficult part is innovating the user interface, but luckily that is also the
fun part (at least it is for me).

This is also similar to what Gmail did. They made web-based email much easier,
faster, and fun to use (while staying free), and that app probably has the
largest number of appreciative users on the planet. Google didn't have to
reinvent email to get those passionate users; they just took an existing thing
and made it much better.

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barry-cotter
Modulo the rare exception it takes time, bloody minded persistence, talent and
a certain amount of luck. The more of the first two you invest the less the
latter two matter, talent because the more time you put in the less your
initial (lack of) talent matters and luck because if you spend long enough at
it some will find you.

So really you need persistence because if you've got that you won't have a
problem keeping it up for (time). Persistence is easiest when you're
motivated; when you're doing something you enjoy or that pays well enough.

You're unlikely to get paid until you've made something impressive and people
ask you to do it for them. So what you need to do is find something you think
is cool and do something about it, publicly, over and over again.

Get a hobby and write about it (blog) or think of an interest and set up a
forum around it (e.g. alternatehistory.com for what-if). Things that are
harder to do are more impressive and get more attention and link love, e.g. a
relatively professionally shot and edited 20min video put up reliably every
week on... Chinese cookery, or a programming screencast.

 _Persistence is key. Calendar time, not wall clock time._

------
samdk
Talk to people.

Don't ask them what they want you to build--they probably don't really know.
Ask them about the problems they're having, and work with them to solve one.

If you've done a good job of that you'll have at least one happy user, and
they probably know others with the same or similar problems.

~~~
alexro
People have all sorts of problems, so restricting your efforts to a domain you
care about is probably the most efficient approach

