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609 sats \ 7 replies \ @nullcount 6 Mar \ on: If you build it, will they come? builders
I propose a third way to build something useful:
Have a problem --> Solve it for yourself --> open source the solution
Customers don't know what they want. Even if they do, they will struggle to communicate it to you effectively. And you will struggle to solve a problem that you, yourself do not have.
Instead, build something you want.
Who cares if anyone else uses it? You solved a problem you had. You are the customer and that is enough of a reason to build something useful.
Some solutions require a market or critical mass of users to become useful.
Better to first solve a problem that doesn't require a market.
It has to be useful to one person before it can be useful to many people.
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This feels like a good idea. But let's try an experiment (which admittedly is probably not where you meant to take it):
Imagine I'm a writer of fiction. I write a story that I think is interesting and compelling. I put it out to the world. No one reads it.
I wrote it for myself, so that's great. But I think many writers (and many people who make things) want to do more than write for themselves (or solve their own problems).
When you put work into a thing like a story, it feels wasted if no one else ever reads it.
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If a writer feels they wasted effort after publishing a piece, then their itch was not scratched in the act of writing it.
Maybe their itch is the need to be recognized, or spread their ideas, or maybe they wanted to make income from their efforts.
If the writer's itch is based in ego or bank account, few besides the writer will find the scratch useful to their own itch.
Maybe the writer should pivot from fiction to self-help or get rich quick books.
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Maybe the writer should pivot from fiction to self-help or get rich quick books.
š¤£šš
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Those self-help books certainly seem to be all over the place. I often wonder who is buying them.
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I second this.
I've done projects both for myself and as freelance.
What I've built for myself was made with my comfort in mind, this led me to work solely on what I really needed and slowly fix bugs and polish the rough parts.
If it works for you, it can work for someone else too, making an "opinionated" software is not a bad choice.
The actual term is "Dogfooding", which means to be your own product's customer,.
If you don't plan to use it for yourself, you'll need to find some reliable third party to be your project "personas".
Else, expect dragons!
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This is the way... The challenge is then marketing the things you like to other people and convincing them of the value.
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