If you want to start a profitable side project, I urge you to find a good niche. This week my project @cloudemdr got featured in the most niche magazine ever. 
It is a tool for psychotherapists to conduct a certain type of treatment (#EMDR) online. This is really important during COVID-19. The tool is helping 1000s of people every week and it also makes some money (most features are free, for accessibility reasons).
If you know exactly who you're building something for, you know who to ask for feedback. My mom is a psychotherapist, so she tested the first versions. When that worked, I asked some people through Linkedin. When they were sharing it without asking, I knew I was onto something...
When you're building for a niche, it's also easier to reach them. I made tutorials that certified #EMDR trainers could use in their training videos. This was a win/win: trainers had to suddenly give remote training, and I needed to reach their trainees.
I used to hate Linkedin, but it has proven to be a great channel for me. I shared tutorials and other information about @cloudemdr and a lot of people were engaging with it and resharing it. I had 3 connections that were psychotherapists in April, now I have 500+.
Moral of the story: Focus on a very clear problem for a very clear audience. You can build things out from there, but start small.
Also: EMDR doesn't use any scary privacy trackers, cookies, or other unethical things. You can still do business and be competitive without those! It's true.
Last thing: If you're building something that is important during COVID-19. Consider giving most of it away for free - you can make money later. Only 1% of my users pay. I know I could make that more if I fenced of more features, but that just doesn't feel right at this time.
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
