My journey in startups began 10 years ago, and I've launched 18 startups, most of which failed. Briefly on why they failed:
1. Contract Online my first startup in 2015, which was supposed to be an online service for remote signing of contracts for any transactions between individuals. A kind of analogue of a secure transaction. For this startup, I even managed to attract a business angel who invested $16,500.
Reason for failure: I had two lawyers on my team who discovered in the process that the legal framework at the time could not provide reliable grounds for protecting our users in remote transactions. The contracts would not have been considered legally signed.
2. Natural Products In 2015-2018, I became very passionate about healthy eating, but in the process, I discovered that products in all chain stores are full of chemicals, and stores with truly natural products are inaccessible to the majority. Hence, the idea emerged to create my own online platform where you could order natural products directly from farmers at affordable prices.
Reason for failure: For several years, I tried to launch this project, even trained as a baker of natural bread and tried to create my own farm, but in the process, I found that few people are willing to pay for truly natural products, even if these products were only 20-30% more expensive than market prices, and not 2-3 times more, as in premium stores. Hence, the market was so small that all my attempts were doomed.
Great product! Of course every start up will face the problem that building something no one need it! But I think it would better to add a new feature that allows users to vote the problems, it's necessary to find the high value problems.😁
ProblemHunt
@li_lu5 Absolutely agree with you, we are already working on this feature. Thank you for your kind words and support, it is very valuable to us. 😊
RiteKit Company Logo API
I suggest that you motivate ProblemHunt site visitors to submit startup ideas. Automate search for things similar that already exist before making them live.
Also: AI test things. Some of those I see on the site, like https://problemhunt.pro/en/marketing-sales/s4e5ajoj91-need-a-service-for-generating-names-and - are solved with an AI prompt.
ProblemHunt
@osakasaul Hi, thank you very much for the ideas! I've noted everything down, we will consider them and run some tests.
Regarding that specific problem, yes, I think some things can be solved by using AI prompts, but the user who posted this problem doesn't "know how" to do that, which means they either need to be taught or be provided with a ready-made product that solves their issue. Sometimes a product can be just a "wrapper" around another product, but with the right marketing that resonates with users. 😉
ProblemHunt
@karevaradharaj Thank you for your valuable suggestions, Kare! You've touched upon a key point. Monetization is indeed a central element for validating the viability of any problem. Your idea about providing "simple hacks" to test demand is a wonderful addition, and we are already developing tools to help users quickly validate their hypotheses with minimal investment.
Hi, nice products. Would be great if I give my startup idea, and you show matched problems. If this feature is already there; sorry about my question
ProblemHunt
@bozkurt_turan_yigit H! 👋 Thank you so much for your support; I really appreciate it. Your idea sounds really great. I've written it down to think it over thoroughly and will most likely implement it in the near future.
Hey i love the idea of what you are building and you have the opportunity to turn this into a super platform that could help people not just to build products that solve a problem but also have direct access to potential users who they could get direct feedback for the solution they come up with for the problems being brought up.
Well here's my idea on how you can get the users some incentives for bringing up a potential problem that should be solved. If the users problem stated can get up to a certain number of upvotes, comments in agreements from people who also use the platform and a system that can show that a certain team picked up the project to work he or she stated, they could get paid a certain amount for bringing up problem which not only that a lot of people agree with but it also leads to a potential startup. That way it would motivate people to share the problems they go through and makes them not only feel heard but get incentives for it.
Also the idea of comments are nice, but you would love that the users can easily be reached out to privately to have a better conversation with an interested or potential founder who wants to solve their problem, which i feel you can control so they don't get unnecessary influx of messages from a lot of people. By making them pay a little sum lets say maybe $3 to get to speak to the person with the problem to know more. The Ui is great for a start but you would need more intentionality and a better flow to get the users directly sign up to share their problems without potentially leaving the platform for those who don't use telegram or necessarily don't want to contact you to put up their problem out there. Also your landing page should let them know what they are there for and what they stand to get using your product. Just my thoughts as product designer. There could be potential flaws but I'm open for more conversation
ProblemHunt
@joshua_nlebemchukwu Joshua hi 👋 Wow! Thank you for such detailed feedback, for your thoughts and ideas! They sound really great. I'll definitely write everything down as ideas and save your contact. Thank you so much again. 😊
@gostroverhov You are welcome, wishing you success
Saywise
Congratulations on the launch and I upvoted!
I wonder how you put together the list of these problems - is this a UGC product where people can submit problems they encounter? Or, are you crawling/indexing these problems from the internet?
Also, I wonder what would be the incentives for people who submit these problems. Is the goal to launch a new startup and the problem sharers become part of the new startups?
Overall, a great concept and something that the world definitely needs!
ProblemHunt
@cksaywise Replied to you under your other exact same comment above. Not sure why it got duplicated :)
from where you , collects the idea in real time, only thru forms?
ProblemHunt
@karthikeyan_t Hi! 👋 Currently, we have two sources:
Forms on the ProblemHunt.pro platform. This accounts for a maximum of about 5% of the total number of problems.
We manually (often through cold outreach) go to people and « extract» problems from them. The process isn't the easiest, but it's currently the main source of problems (95% of the total).
Hi@gostroverhov , create a code snippet to extract the need, painpoints to solve for startup idea from reddit.com . Will be real oyur purpose to solve . Good luck
ProblemHunt
@karthikeyan_t This aligns very well with my vision. I will definitely implement it in the near future. Thank you so much for the idea! 😊