Deciding if an idea is worth pursuing

As a Saaspreneur or indie hacker, you're probably working on your SaaS venture solo, or as a very small team.

Therefore, one of the most challenging decisions to make is choosing the right idea, where you will invest your precious time.

After hearing from multiple successful solopreneurs and considering my own experience, I found there are 3 key areas to consider when deciding what to work on:

1) Is it useful for you?
2) Is it the right level of challenging?
3) Is it solving a real pain?

Let's dig into each of those areas.

1. Is it useful... for you?

Some might not agree with this, but after looking at what the best solopreneurs are doing, it seems like the best way to succeed in a solo venture is to build something to solve your own problems.

The reason being that if you start working on a project that you don't have a vested interest in, it might be harder to find motivation.

Also, if you are your first power user, user research instantly becomes more convenient. You don't need to set up interviews with your target persona to validate hypotheses, you can just go and build what you think is the most useful.

You can iterate much faster because you can test the product yourself and instantly notice what is missing or not working well.

I wouldn't say the same thing if you were looking to build a VC-backed startup, but for a Saaspreneur setting out to build a micro SaaS or a side project, choosing to work on something you resonate with is, in my opinion, paramount.

2. Is it the "right" level of challenging?

Ok, this one is trickier, but by "right" I mean right for you.

If you build something that is too easy - what's to stop others from doing exactly the same over a week-end or two?

Think of your unique strengths:

• Are you familiar with a specific technology?
• Do you have insights on a particular problem that is pretty niche?
• Have you done something many times and have figured out the main blockers?

You should spend time doing something that you are the best positioned to do.

That way, you have a chance of doing it better than anyone.

3. Is it solving a real pain?

Even if the above 2 points are checked, you want to invest your time doing something really useful, that will eventually attract users that have similar needs, and who might even be willing to pay for your product.

That is why you need to make sure you are solving a real problem, and not just a small bother.

Think about how you feel when you're doing the thing that currently needs solving:

Do you dream about how much better your life would be if that process was optimized? Do you feel annoyed and even angered at how inefficient the task is?

If so, then you might consider working on an improvement.

But if you're only thinking "Meh", or it's just a small thing that you find imperfect, then it might not be worth your time.

Ultimately, you're the one in charge: you decide what you want to spend your time on. If you find value in pursuing ideas that do not fit the above criteria, then please - go ahead and do it!

If your goal is to optimize for efficiency, then I would suggest thinking long and hard about this checklist before starting any new project.

Happy building!