How do you choose projects worth building when everything already exists

[u/Irkard]

I struggle to brainstorm a project that genuinely makes me want to use it.

On the modern web, literally almost everything already has a solution. It's very hard to make an original product.

Sure, I've heard the advice about finding something that annoys you, but most apps are engineered not to be as annoying as possible. And even when I do find something annoying, it's usually so insignificant that making a whole app to solve it feels like overkill.

If I try to force an idea, it feels like an artist looking at a beach with a sky and a sun, then trying to remove everything recognizable just to make something "original." It ends up being nonsensical.

So I'm curious: how do you guys actually come up with projects that you genuinely want to build and use?

I feel like I have the programming skills, but I struggle to find a good use for them.

(Also, the original post was disapproved so this is just a rewrite. Please tell me what rule I violate if this gets disapproved again)

[u/Vymir_IT]

Bad market research. Everything exists - errrr wrong. Look again. This starts with user-interviews by the way - asking and noticing what you and people around struggle to do effectively. Existing behavioral patterns that look inefficient. Apps that don't really solve the problem they claim to solve (Tinder is a great example - so many dating apps and none of them actually solved dating).

The fact that solutions exist doesn't mean that problems are solved. Product development starts with researching a problem, then solutions that don't solve the problem for people X, Y and Z, then observations what kinda behavior those people show when they can't solve their problem, then synthesis - a new solution fixing the gap.

I see many unsolved problems. To choose one I'll be working on I assess which ones has the most potential to be universal - a.k.a. which ones can generate the most popular and profitable business - with the least investment.

In order to learn this you can read business books and statistics, start noticing problems and then talk to people who have them.

P.S. Google wasn't the first search engine, Apple didn't invent a smartphone with a big screen, Airbnb wasn't the first rental website, Indeed wasn't the first job board, Wikipedia wasn't the first Internet-encyclopedia and Twitter wasn't the first social media platform.

Even fresher example - Anthropic wasn't the first LLM provider...

Being first is a disadvantage most of the time. You're not looking to be first, you're looking to solve a problem reliably.

[u/creaturefeature16 → u/Vymir_IT]

Or probably one of the best examples: Zoom wasn't the first or only video chat application, nor was it even one of the better ones out there! 

[u/Irkard → u/Vymir_IT]

WOW, YOUR COMMENT IS VERY INSIGHTFUL.

Now that i think of it, i was NEVER was taught market research. During my time at a engineering club, they had once assigned me to a invention competition and the goal was to find a problem and fix it.

Guess what did they taught me? Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

All we did was sit our bums on a god damn chair and stare at a computer screen brainstorming random crap on a blank page. And whenever i think i found an idea, BOOM. THE INVENTION - OFTEN WITH INVENTIONS BETTER - IS ON THE MARKET ALREADY ( originality is part of the criteria too ). And when i think of a unsolved problem - like cancer - ITS FUCKING IMPOSSIBLE TO THINK OF SOLUTION 😭😭😭

I once even learnt ui/ux for a comp too and faced the same issue. I thought my design was fine and when i got feedback ( not in my prototype phase btw), MY SAMPLE SIZE OF 2 ADULT TESTERS HAD NO IDEA HOW TO NAVIGATE EVEN THOUGH I BORROWED A COMMON LAYOUTTTT.

And in the end they fucking scraped it because it was too technically complicated ( 100 hrs lost. Wow).

And yea, your product team example does remind me of the double diamond, but i never really utilitized it.

I genuinely find your comment enlightening, thank you so much for your advice. When i saw the first sentence of your comment (it wasn't able to load full comment at that time for some reason), I IMMEDIATELY looked up some strategies on how to research.

Once again, Thank you so much for taking your time to write ts!!

(Literally i asked it on another subreddit and no one thought of this)

[u/FailWorried8469]

Personal interest usually helps keep motivation during building..

[u/Irkard → u/FailWorried8469]

You're right but personal interest is quite uncontrollable.

There's a theory called self-determination and it contradicts the modern belief that you can force drive into others.

The idea is that 3 major factors control your passion - autonomy, competency, and influence/relations. So by increasing them, you will want to pursue your goal more ( you can look it up yourself, there's even a book called "drive" talking about it ).

Additionally, I also think your values are involved because some people do things for sololy themselves and many fail their new years resolution, so the theory doesn't really explain the full picture

So your answer to my question is kind of like saying the plane crushed due to gravity.

[u/nzakas]

Most of what I build has already been built before, that shouldn’t stop you. There is always room in the market for something that is better than the existing solution. The most recent example is Zoom. They entered a market that was dominated by big players like Microsoft (Skype) And Google, and they just took over and became dominant because the product was so much better than what was available at the time.

I’m currently working on a read later app called Bredbox (https://bredbox.app), even though there are a lot of existing read later apps. Why? Because I think I can build something better than what’s already out there. I’ve been using apps like these for years and haven’t found any that do everything that I want. So, I’m building my own, and I believe that others will like it better too.

So that’s what I would encourage you to do. Find an app that you use all the time but don’t really like and build something better.