Issue #016 - A bootstrapper's guide to mining Reddit for ideas

Hey,

Hope you're settling into the summer mood with a cool drink in your hand - I've got a formerly-iced-but-now-melted Starbucks coffee by my side. (Yes, it’s sad.) Anyway, today, we're going to explore a goldmine of business ideas: Reddit. But first, let's catch up on some updates:

📣 What you’ve missed last week

⭐️ Pierre organised his 3rd No Code Drinks in London (photo here for proof). Not in London? Don’t worry I got you - the next No Code Drinks is virtual so get your virtual cocktails ready.
⭐️ Artists and content writers are losing their jobs as clients replace them with AI.
⭐️ I shared a 10-point checklist for launching your own micro SAAS and selling it.

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Anyway, let's dive into the world of Reddit👇

🔎 How to mine Reddit for ideas

You’ve obviously heard of the phrase “focus on finding a problem to solve” when it comes to finding a business idea. One approach that people often refer to, is mining Reddit for ideas. See this, this and this posts.

Here’s how you do it in 3 simple steps:

1️⃣ Join Reddit (duh)

2️⃣ Find Subreddits that are either interesting to you, or are fast-growing.

3️⃣ Search for the “Questions” or “Discussions” filter (if they don’t exist, search manually for words like “how to”.

Then, it’s a case of reading through what comes up to understand the problems people are facing. Ask questions if you need to dive deeper.

👀 Here’s a quick example

Let’s take the subreddit, r/travel for example. Even without joining the subreddit, I can already read through everything that’s posted on the forum. Awesome. Let’s click on the helpful filter for "Question” (bottom right of the page) and see what we find.

Right off the bat, we can already see a few interesting topics, like travelling with a criminal record (create a site that finds the best places to travel to with a criminal record?), travelling with pets (I know the owner of this luxury private jet for pets company). Both are great business ideas IMO.

👁 What are we looking for?

Anyway, you just keep going. The goal is to find problems that ideally tick as many boxes as possible:

✅ Consistent problem for many
✅ Something changed recently that makes this problem solvable in a better way (hello, GPT)
✅ You know something about the problem
✅ You want to work on this problem (please don’t skip this)

🔥 Opportunities 

A quick 15-minute skim later, I’ve identified 7 interesting problems:

• Travelling with pets

• Travelling with criminal records

• Non-boring travel

• Solo-travel problems, including how to explain your plans to family and friends so they don’t look at you weirdly

• Travel sleep schedule

• What to look for when moving to a country you fell in love with as a tourist

• Travelling when you are ill (new problem post-Covid!)

If you self-identify as someone with those specific problems, you’d realise you’re not alone and can quickly come up with a potential solution that appeals to you. That’s why I’d strongly recommend going with a problem you know or are highly incentivized to solve.

Otherwise, keep reading or asking questions to understand THAT specific problem better.

💀 Risks  

It is VERY tempting to jump straight into solutions mode and start building. Don’t even think about building a quick landing page at this point. In a future issue, we will discuss “How to validate an idea without building anything”.

But essentially, you’d want to start to ask yourself:

✅ Is the problem real?

✅ Is the solution you’re considering your best guess of what the market needs?

Will you try this?

Alright, I'll leave you to dive into Reddit. Can't wait to hear about the ideas you come up with. As always, um, feel free to reach out if you need any help brainstorming or refining your ideas.

Until the next one,

Hazel

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