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Comment by danielweber | Hacker News Reader

There is a lot of money out there for hackers who want to make stuff for non-hackers; but I think a lot of HN'ers have problems figuring out what those things are.

Lots of hackers like to build things relevant to their own hobbies, but the problem is that if you make (say) a WoW character builder, some other hacker will build another one for free. (I don't play WoW so I don't know if my example made any sense, but you can fill in the blank for one that does.) They need to find something non-hackers want.

I don't think there is any list you or 'patio11 has of these things, or else the niche would already be filled. But I think that's what HN'ers want: "tell me what to build!" And they don't know what to build.

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1) Identify a market that you know something about - not necessarily much, but something - and where a medium-sized number of people spend a fair amount of money with minimal resistance, regularly.

2) Talk to those people about their problems. Find out what really scares them, pisses them off, or simply takes too much time.

3) Build something to fix that problem. Keep talking to real people who have the problem you're fixing as you build it.

This is the methodology I've heard quoted by a dozen successful entrepreneurs, from Jason Cohen to Naomi Dunford. It's also extremely close to Tim Ferriss' recommended approach in Four Hour Work Week.

I make money in slightly different ways to this - at present - but as far as I can tell, it works. If you follow all the steps.

(Note: building something for WoW players fails at step #1. The market simply doesn't support spending a lot of money regularly.)

Doesn't elementary school teacher fail at #1 too?

You might think so if you know schoolteachers only by reputation, but actually, they spend a ton on teaching materials. They will go to Barnes & Noble, scour the educational section and plunk down $200 without blinking.

Well, my wife is an elementary school teacher, and I promise she doesn't spend 200 at BN without blinking. She does spend some money, but not tons.

Most people in every profession fail at #1.

Hence why you need to find the ones that don't :)

Although once you start evaluating, you'll rapidly find there are plenty of markets that fit the bill. Golf. Soccer fans. Airplane enthusiasts (RC, amateur pilot and planespotter alike). PC building enthusiasts. Almost any business. Martial artists. Re-enactors and RenFaire enthusiasts. Almost all the alternative medicine areas. And that's just off the top of my head without mentioning any of the markets I'm actually considering entering one of these days.

If you're only willing to build things you like, I've got no help to offer you on microISV product businesses. For what it's worth, I have the same challenge. For people like us, my recommendation is: find a way to align what you like with something that is lucrative as a service. You can make a lot of money wanking around with suave ways to get pixels onto an iPhone screen.

Having competition, even free competitors, doesn't have to be a deal breaker. If you have a superior product you can still make sales.

Even if you don't have a better product, you can still make sales by being more visible, being the first product people find/try when they begin searching. If they like the product, they might buy without even knowing there was a free competitor. It's a less noble strategy than having the best product, but more profitable than having a perfect product no-one ever finds. (Ideally you should have a great product and high visibility, of course.)

I'd go further - having competitors is a very strong sign that you're onto something good. It's when you enter a niche that should be teeming with competitors and isn't that you should start being concerned!

I ran across a rather good quote on this subject the other day - "Don't worry too much about being different. Just be good. Good is different enough."

Having competition, even free competitors, doesn't have to be a deal breaker.

Exactly. Just look at Google & Facebook. Both were late comers to their respective businesses (search engines & social networks). Both now have oodles of money.

And therein lies the rub. If hackers build things relevant to their own hobbies, and "hackers," as a group, tend to have really similar hobbies...

They'll build the same products. Over and over and over again. Not bad, per se, but a massive opportunity for someone with development skill and a different set of interests.

I meant was that hackers build those things because they are familiar to them. Patrick had some interaction, somewhere, that led him to realize that people need bingo cards.

Ask the non-hackers in your life what little pieces of software they occasionally have a big enough desire for -- big enough they'd pick $30 at the time. Then tell me. :)

My auntie was telling me this weekend that she has to keep running Windows to keep an old Quilting application running. There are newer/cross-platform ones available but they can cost thousands and she doesn't want to change.

the problem is that if you make (say) a WoW character builder, some other hacker will build another one for free.

Nonsense! Just look at bottled water. The definition of selling something that everyone (not just hackers) can get for free.

The success of bottled water is the result of a, eh, educational campaign. Namely, that tap water is full of yucky stuff.

Without this market conditioning, I don't think many people would have been interested. So they are selling something valuable to a lot of people: water that won't make you sick, which is much different than the alternative.

True. Every domain I've ever worked in, I've seen huge opportunities. Alas, I suck at seizing those opportunities. I code something up (the fun part) and then lose interest at the startup / marketing & sales / money stuff.

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