# How I Find App Ideas People Will Actually Pay For!!

Channel: SJCodes
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9TFKNgaDjo
Duration: 9 min
Language: English
Words: 1759
Transcript page: https://viewrankai.com/tools/youtube-transcript/x9TFKNgaDjo

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[0:00] Coming up with app ideas is easy. Coming up with an app idea that someone will actually pay you for is a completely different problem. And for a long time, I was doing this completely backwards. I'd sit there, try to think of some amazing original idea, something nobody had built before. I'd write ideas down in my notes, start thinking about [music] features, what tech stack I'd use, and most of them never went anywhere. But the first app I built that actually made over $10,000 wasn't some genius idea nobody had thought of. It wasn't even original. I noticed a problem. I could see people already wanted a solution, and I built my own

[0:34] version of it. That small shift in how I look for ideas has completely changed what I choose to build. So, if I was looking for another profitable app idea today, this is exactly how I'd do it. The first thing I'd do sounds a little bit strange. I'd stop trying to come up with app ideas. Because when you sit down and say, "I need to think of a profitable app," you normally start thinking about products. Maybe I'll build a productivity app, maybe an AI tool, maybe a fitness app, maybe some massive SaaS platform. But you're starting at the wrong end. Instead, try to look for [music] problems, and

[1:09] specifically, problems people are already trying to solve. Fast folders is a really good example of this. I was using Google Gemini regularly, and I had loads of conversations building up, and there wasn't a good way for me to organize them. That was annoying me. But more importantly, I wasn't the only person with that problem. People were looking for ways to organize their chats. Similar tools already existed for other AI platforms, so I didn't suddenly discover some completely new market. The problem already existed. I just saw an opportunity to solve it for a particular group of users. And that distinction is really important, because you don't necessarily need to invent demand. It's

[1:46] much easier if you can find demand that's already there. [music] Another way is to look at how people are currently solving a problem without your app. This is probably one of my favorite ways to find ideas because people are incredibly good at creating terrible workarounds, spreadsheets, Notion pages, random scripts, copying information between different apps, keeping things in their notes app, doing the same repetitive task manually every [music] single day. Whenever I see something like that, I start paying attention because if somebody is willing to put up with an annoying five-step [music] process every day, there might be an opportunity to turn those five steps into one. And I'd look for these

[2:27] problems in places where people actually talk about them. I have mentioned Reddit on most of my videos, but it is a great source for this. There are also Discord communities, GitHub issues, YouTube comments, reviews for existing products, even conversations you have at work. Look for specific phrases people say. Does anyone know a way to I wish this could Why doesn't this do? Those are basically people handing you product ideas. And the interesting part is you're not guessing anymore. You found

[2:55] someone who actually has the problem. Now, it's up to you to investigate further. So, while I'm researching potential app ideas, there's something else I've started doing that can make this whole process a lot easier. Because one of the problems with researching new ideas is that you're constantly coming across things you don't fully understand. Maybe it's a new technology. Maybe it's a market you've never looked into before. Or you find an article or a piece of documentation that's relevant to your idea, but it's incredibly technical and you just want someone to explain what it actually means. And that brings me nicely onto today's sponsor, Scrimba, because they've recently

[3:32] released a new tool called Explain. And I think this is actually a really interesting concept. With Explain, you can give it pretty much anything you're trying to understand. You can ask it a question, paste in some text, upload a document, or even just give it a link. And within a few [music] seconds, it turns that information into a video explainer that actually walks you through the subject. So, for example, imagine during the research for an app idea, I come across a technology that I've heard of, but I don't really understand how it works. [music] Rather than opening another 10 tabs, reading through documentation, and then inevitably ending up watching three

[4:09] different YouTube videos trying to piece everything together, I can give that information to Explain and get a visual explanation of the subject instead. And this is what I really like about it. It's not just giving you another massive wall of AI-generated text to read. It's actually turning the information into something much more visual and digestible. And they've made it pretty easy to fit into the tools you're probably already using, as well. Explain works directly with ChatGPT, so you can use it while you're already having a conversation [music] in there. And there's also a Chrome extension, which means you can use Explain while you're browsing [music] the web. For me, I can

[4:44] see this being particularly useful when I'm learning about a new technology, researching a market I don't know about, going through technical documentation, or even trying to understand something I've found while researching an app idea, like we're doing in this video. Because ultimately, the quicker I can understand something, the quicker I can decide whether it's actually relevant to what I'm building. So, if you want to check out Scrimba Explain, there's a link down in the description. And using my link will also get you 20% off a Scrimba subscription. A massive thanks

[5:15] to Scrimba for sponsoring the video. Now, understanding a problem is obviously important, but there's a much bigger question we still need to answer. Will somebody actually pay you to solve it? Now we've got a problem, but that still doesn't mean we have a business. [music] So, before I spend months building something, I want some evidence that the problem is valuable enough. And there are a few things I'd look for. Are people already paying for other solutions? Are businesses paying employees to do this manually? Does the problem cost someone time, and how painful is it? Because normally, the closer your app gets to either making someone money, saving them money, saving

[5:53] them time, or removing a massive frustration, the easier it becomes to justify paying for it. That doesn't mean every profitable app needs to solve some huge life-changing problem. Fast folders doesn't. It organizes AI conversations. But for somebody who uses those tools every day, organization and saved time has value. And some of those people are

[6:13] willing to pay for that convenience. That's all you're trying to find. Don't be afraid of the competition. This was something I definitely misunderstood when I first [music] started building things. I'd have an idea, search for it, find out somebody had already built it, and immediately think, well, that's that idea gone. Now, I almost think the opposite. If I search for an idea, and there are already products solving it, that's not automatically bad news. It can actually be a good sign, because it means there's probably a market. The question then becomes, can I solve that problem differently or for a specific group of people? Maybe the existing

[6:47] product is too expensive. Maybe it's complicated. Maybe it's missing one really useful feature. Maybe it's built for businesses, and you could make a simpler version for individuals. Maybe the reviews are full of people complaining about the same thing. This is where competitor reviews are incredibly useful. Go through the one-star, two-star, and three-star reviews. Not to copy the product, but to

[7:09] understand where users are frustrated. If hundreds of people keep [music] complaining about the same missing feature, that's interesting. You don't always need to create a completely new category. Sometimes, you just need to build a better solution for a smaller problem. So, whenever I come across an app idea now, I basically run it through a simple filter. Is there a real problem? Can I find people who have that problem? Are

[7:32] they already trying to solve it somehow? Is the problem painful enough that someone might pay to fix it? And can I build a small version that solves it? If I can't answer those questions, I probably wouldn't build it. At least not if my goal was to make money. Because you can build anything you want for fun, and I still think you should. Some of the best ways to learn programming are just building random things you're interested in. But there's a difference between a project you're building to learn and a product you're expecting people to buy. If you're building a product, the customer [music] has to

[8:02] come into the equation much earlier. I think developers sometimes put far too much pressure on themselves to come up with the next incredible idea. You don't need to. You don't need an idea nobody has ever thought of, and you definitely don't need to build the next billion-dollar startup. Start paying attention to the problems around you. Look at what people complain about. Look at the awkward workarounds you and they're using. Look at products people already pay for and what they're frustrated with. And when you find something interesting, don't disappear

[8:32] for 6 months and build the entire thing. Talk to people. Test it. Build the smallest version you can. Get it into someone's hands and see if they'll actually pay you for it. Because ultimately, the best app idea isn't necessarily the cleverest one. It's the one that solves a real enough problem that somebody is willing to reach into their pocket and pay you to make that problem go away. So rather than asking

[8:53] yourself, "What's a good app idea?" start asking, "What's a problem I could solve?" And you'll probably start seeing ideas everywhere. If you want more help with this, then take a look at my how to build profitable apps solo PDF. The link for this is in the description. If you're currently building something, let me know what you're working on down in the comments. And as always, thanks for watching [music] and I'll see you in the

[9:13] next one.

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