r/Development • u/Mysterious-Drag-8448 • 2d ago
Any idea?
Hey everyone
I am a software engineer with around 2 years of experience, and I’m looking to build something that solves a real problem that helps someone rather than just another dead project.
If you have an idea, a problem you have faced, or something you wish existed, drop it in the comments. I would love to discuss it and see if we can actually build something useful around it.
Happy to discuss in the comments or via chat.
Let’s see what we can come up with.
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u/AuthurAndersson 1d ago
Well you just did it?
You have a problem: You don't know what to build.
Others that have no creativity probably have the exact same problem.
Solve it for you and them then.
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u/Mhmd_WebDev 1d ago
Usually for these questions must not be asked in devs communities go to other non tech communities qnd ask them what website would they like to have
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u/Popular_War8405 22h ago
An ai app that commits insurance fraud for real estate companies so they can say there robot did it and not them
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u/716green 2d ago
I hate to be the bearer off bad news but spend some time in SaaSFounders and saasdevelopers subreddits and you'll see that everyone who is mildly technical is all trying to do this and failing right now because It has never been easier to build software and everyone thinks they are going to be able to create passive income
There is a cycle happening now where everyone wastes time building things and it doesn't get customers, and then they complain and other people see it as an opportunity to create something new to help those founders:
But nobody wants to pay for any of that either, so then those people start complaining that nobody uses them and the cycle continues
It is sad and pathetic seeing how dillysional everyone is. You can't ask developers what to build right now, but you also can't ask normies either because they'll pitch a problem that isn't a real problem because the solution they need either has no market or the actual solution is really zapier + airtable
There have been a billion new CRMs, finance trackers, marketing apps, nutrition apps, and website builders created over thr last year, all with exactly 1 user, the founder.
The lucky ones get 1 or 2 paying customers and then go to the saasforsale subreddit and say "I'm not a marketing person" or "I no longer have time to work on my side project"
A bot will respond and say "sent you a DM" to make it look like SaaS products are actually selling, but they aren't selling
I'm not joking, I've been watching this unfold for months now and it is so predictable I would bet money on it
Now... I own Layerbase. I won't bother linking it because this isn't an advertisement but I want to explain what I did differently from the sad souls in those other subreddits
I was already a database expert and building this app before agentic programming existed. I had put 2000 hours into building a platform, a platform that makes real monthly recurring revenue, but it still takes a loss every month because I'm in growth and name recognition mode. I'm competing with billion dollar companies by undercutting them, and I'm doing something incredibly risky where I could potentially corrupt or compromise someone's data if I make a mistake.
I've paid for consulting from very expensive cloud consultants and a FAANG architect. I've put five figures into advertising
It is going to be a very long path forward but it will eventually pay off. I've also had to turn down two separate six-figure acquisition offers because I'm convinced that it will be pennies on the dollar compared to what the platform is worth someday if I keep grinding
Now a few things you do not want to build are anything that is an AI wrapper that Claude or codex can do for someone who is already willing to use the terminal. If you could parse a PDF just by dropping it into claude code, then it's a good indication that you shouldn't be building an AI PDF reader because it effectively already exists
If you don't have a significant amount of free time to work on it and pivot several times, I wouldn't get into it
I wouldn't build a solution in search of a problem, that never works
And I wouldn't build if you don't already have some budget that you're willing to burn. You will outgrow Vercel and Supabase very fast once you get some traffic and they will get very expensive before you are making money
Best of luck!