New ideas are always exciting. We get hands-on and start building too early, only to lose interest later.
Here is a list of questions I currently use to reflect on ideas before I build them.
Who am I building for?
- Where can I find them?
- Do I have easy access to where they are?
- Can I describe the my potential users in a short sentence?
What problems do they have today?
- Can I explain the problem in simple words?
What is my solution?
- What do I have to build?
- Is it technically feasible and possible?
What is the current state?
- How do people solve it today?
- Who are the competitors? What is wrong with them?
- Is my solution so much better to make them try it?
- Have someone else tried this before?
- What are the reasons for people to not use this? Can I solve this?
Why now?
- Why is now the best time to do this?
- Why haven’t anyone thought of this before?
Is this for me?
- What is my unfair advantage?
- Is this something I want to do for next 10 years of my life?
- Does it align with my personal vision?
Answering all that question might take a lot of time. But thinking about these things will give you more time to reflect on the idea and decide if it is worth pursuing.
Memos by Sooraj 
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