How to come up with Product Ideas 101 (inspired by Amazon)

If you've ever:

• Felt like coming up with product ideas is harder than teaching a cat to swim

• Thought "Ugh, marketing? I'd rather eat sand."

• Stared blankly at the idea of a roadmap from concept to world domination

...then strap in! By the end of this email (and its sequel tomorrow), you'll be an idea-generating, market-dominating machine. Or at least slightly less confused. No guarantees, but hey, that's entrepreneurship for you!

P.S: Steve Jobs came alive for a short while to drop a quote. Read it below.

P.P.S: Checkout the landing page of LiGo (I created it entirely using AI) - video proof at the bottom of the email.

The "I'm Not Creative Enough" Myth

First things first: if you think you're not creative enough to come up with good ideas, I'm gonna need you to take that thought, crumple it up, and slam-dunk it into the nearest trash can. I believe in you, can you?

Storytime! I was in a local cafe (read: dhaba), sipping chai, playing Ludo, when a friend asks, "What product should I build?"

Short answer: Ideas are everywhere. You just need to know where to look.

Where to Find Ideas (Without Resorting to Black Magic)

1. Your own damn life: What pisses you off on a daily basis? Boom, there's your million-dollar idea. Maybe an oversimplification.
   Longer Version: Are you a <business owner>? What processes could you automate in your own <business> that would increase efficiency and either save you time or money or grow your revenue? Now, imagine God has banned you from doing it yourself - so you can’t create that automation yourself - would you have paid money if someone else did that for you?
   

   Now, replace business owner with what you identify as (e.g. marketing manager, job). If you can think of something, there’s your idea. Go to reddit, quora or wherever you think you are likely to find people of “your niche” hanging around, validate the pain or the desire. Create a waitlist landing page (or just a simple landing page, more in the next section) - gouge interest, build MVP, launch.
   

2. Reddit/Quora stalking: Not the creepy kind. Just lurk in subreddits related to your interests. People love complaining online. Their complaints = your opportunity.
   More details here: https://newsletter.ertiqah.com/p/test-startup-idea-4-steps-no-guesswork
   

3. App Store deep dives: Find a mediocre app with decent downloads. Think you can do better? There's your next project!
   (Do some due dilligence of course - Use Perplexity or Google to try and get an estimate of their MRR/ARR).

The Birth of a Beautiful Mildly Dysfunctional Baby (AKA LiGo)

Before I founded Ertiqah, I had a backlog of 18 products. LiGo was not one of them.

It all started when I began posting regularly on LinkedIn and writing this newsletter (back in May). I found myself spending 5 to 10 hours on LinkedIn and another 5 to 10 hours on the newsletter every single week. At that time, I wanted to reduce this by 20 to 50% to make more time for building products, watching netflix and creating YouTube videos, etc.

(Ideation) That's when the lightbulb moment hit. What if I just use AI to do the same thing in 30% to 80% less time, without killing the authenticity or losing my unique voice? I had this brilliant idea, right? But like most brilliant ideas, it sat in the back of my mind, gathering dust because who has time to implement every half-baked scheme that pops into their head?

(Pain increases) Then, I onboarded Rassam as my co-founder about two months after launching the company. So there I am, watching poor Rassam spend 60% of his time on LinkedIn and newsletter stuff, just like I used to. And I just... lost it. It was like watching a car crash in slow motion, except the car was our productivity and the crash was... well, you get the idea.

That's when I knew: this sh*t needs to be automated. NOW.

(Motivation spikes) I went on a two-day coding sprint. Red Bull, pizza, nicotine, the whole nine yards (kidding, I divorced fast food 3 years ago). By the end, I had something that kinda, sorta worked. Was it pretty? Hell no. (You can check the “initial version” at https://btensai.com/login/ - I forgot to turn off the ec2 machine). But it was functional. And that is when the idea for “LiGo” was born (referred to internally as “LinkedIn Assist”, lol).

I built it Amazon-style. You know how Amazon built AWS for themselves first? Yeah, that. I made this thing specifically for Rassam to use. My thinking was, if he can use it without wanting to throw his computer out the window, this can be the first product.

And guess what? It worked. Rassam's productivity skyrocketed, and we had our initial pain validation.

💡 Note: This idea originated via Method # 1 I mentioned (most of my ideas come via #1).

"But Isn't the Market Saturated?" - Every Wantrepreneur Ever

Short answer: Nope.

Long answer: Nooooooope.

Look, there are a gazillion software companies out there. But guess what? There's room for more. You don't need to capture 100% of the (total addressable) market. Hell, you can make a pretty sweet living with just a tiny slice of the pie.

(Example: Tell me 3 firewall vendors you know of. You could probably only think of Cisco, right? Guess what there’s over 15+ vendors that have 1M+ ARR that I know of. In reality, it might be a lot more).

Remember when Steve Jobs said:

Competitor Analysis (Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Competition)

Here's a fun exercise: look at your “idea” competitors (because you likely don’t have a product yet?) and instead of freaking out, say "Thank you." Why? Because they've already validated the market for you!

In our case, we looked at tools like EasyGen, Taplio, Scripe and AuthoredUp. Each had its strengths, but we saw gaps we could fill. The key is to find your unique angle. Ours is authenticity. Because we care deeply about that. But that’s a “values” thing, for execution:

Can you do it faster? Or Cheaper? With more style and panache?

Remember, you don't need to be the best at everything. You just need to be the best at something. In Ertiqah’s case, I can assure you that any idea I pick:

My team can do it faster, better and cheaper. Because they’re one of the very few genuinely AI-First people I know of. I believe in alignment. Very strongly. That’s why the first two weeks after I onboarded Rassam, I told him very clearly:

If I’m shouting at the top of my lungs in public that “businesses and professionals need to use AI, and take it more seriously”, I can’t have an executive that himself does not really use AI himself. If I can’t sell him on that idea, and get him to be truly AI-First, I can’t even start to do it for the team members (2). And guess what? Out of every 20 words he speaks, one of those words is “Claude”. I’m not kidding. And here’s feedback from one of the team members (dev) a few weeks after joining:

What's Coming Up in Part 2?

Tomorrow, we're diving into the nitty-gritty of marketing (without wanting to gouge your eyes out), scaling (without losing your soul), and maintaining authenticity (while leveraging the heck out of AI).

Stay tuned, keep building, and remember: if your first idea doesn't set the world on fire, there's always pivot number 37!

Catch you on the flip side,

Junaid

P.S. Oh, and I started this crazy 100-day YouTube challenge.
Goal: 1000 subscribers, 4000 watch hours.
Currently: 10K views, 250 subscribers, 400 watch hours.

First video's up on using AI to create landing pages. If you want to watch me potentially make a fool of myself daily, here's your chance:

Update: This newsletter was written 80% by AI. I can now die in peace.