Often, wanting to build something is proof it's a bad idea
I had a moment of clarity recently, where I pieced together a lot of my experiences building out side project after side project over the last 5 years.
Most importantly, I realised that I've learned how to recognise a specific thought pattern as a huge red herring.
Everyone in this community has had the same thought before, no doubt. It exists between the cracks of writing random software ideas in your Notes app.
"I actually need this, and I don't know of another solution! I should build this."
We've all been told that its good to scratch your own itch, to solve a problem you've actually experienced. Surely there's other folks just like you out there!
And there ARE other people just like you! That, it turns out, is the problem.
Because let's look at you in this situation. You've encountered a problem. You've assessed that you don't know of a way to solve that problem. But rather than desperately look for options, or throw money at it, you've decided to BUILD A PIECE OF SOFTWARE instead!
In situations like this, you are a bad market. Your desire to solve this problem is so weak that you feel like you have the time to build an entire product to remedy it. You'd rather spend your nights coding than throw a credit card at the problem.
It may be an itch to scratch, but clearly nothing more.
I think us indiehackers fall into this trap a lot. Be very sceptical of the ideas that you actually want to build. This is not good validation.
Instead, look for the ones that you desperately didn't want to build, but had to; or the ones where you lay in the aftermath of some awful alternative sought out in desperation.
Hope this helps some of you!
If it did, my ask is you check out my latest project: https://www.startcasts.com - a startup and product builder podcast search engine! It was definitely an itch scratch too, although its not meant to be anything more than a hobby project.
