The ridiculously simple method to find $1,000,000 ideas even if you’re not a genius.

I solve my own problems.

In startup language: Scratch your own itch.

Linus Torvalds, creator of Linux, which powers servers around the world, solved his own problem.

My mentor who built the startup that became Apple Maps and sold it to them for 1 billion, solved his own problem. He had issues figuring out how to move through the bustle of mazes that was the New York City transportation system. It was a problem he had, he solved it, and he won.

This is how I’ve also come up with all the ideas I’ve had so far.

It was the same for Suzy Batiz. Founder of Poo Pourri, a company that reached $1 million in revenue in 1 year and is now worth over $240 million.

It happened right under her nose when her husband stunk up the bathroom. What if there was a way to get rid of the lingering smell in a bathroom after going number two? She started experimenting with fragrance oils, and she soon discovered that odors could be eliminated when her “magic potion” was put in the toilet before you pooped.

After a few improvements, she put her magic potion into a spray bottle, and the idea for “Poo-Pourri, Before You Go” spray was born. Within a few years, Poo-Pourri had done more than $400 million in sales.

Excerpt from 12 months to a million, Ryan Daniel Moran

How you can find $1,000,000 ideas as a non-genius like I do.

I find things that frustrate me.

I really dislike cooking. Especially now that it’s either salt got saltier, my taste buds got more sensitive, or my cooking intuition is faulty cause my food has been coming out saltier. I don’t want to disturb myself about stuff like this, shopping for groceries or thinking of what to eat for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

I’m thinking of hiring a private chef as soon as I can.

My time is becoming increasingly more important and the more of it I can get back the better. Many entrepreneurs also have this problem. I could find some chefs to partner with and serve entrepreneurs a week’s worth of food. I would do a subscription model with the entrepreneurs and do revenue sharing with the chefs. I don’t even have to do the work.

Other frustrations I have are:

I hate my note-taking system. I forget to follow up on things and it’s difficult to find what I need later.
Cleaning my apartment.
Washing dishes.
Washing my clothes.
Managing my calendar.
Not following my schedule.
It takes me too long to fall asleep, 1–2 hours. Sometimes I have sleepless nights.
My brain is too active which causes mental overload.

Take a few minutes with a paper and pen. Write down 10 problems you had over the last week. Check for:

Time-wasting activities.
Activities you find boring.
Activities that make you sad or angry.

Some Ideas I have come up with so far.

DMfollow

I had a brief career as a ghostwriter.

The problem every contractor faces is finding clients. The even greater problem is following up. We know by the rule of 7 that the sale is in the follow-up. Follow-up is easy enough in emails with automation software like Apollo but what about your DMs? This was my idea.

Stop tracking prospects in a spreadsheet or figuring out who you should follow up with and when. DMfollow helps you automate follow-up in your DMs.

Following up in DMs is too hard. Following up on anything is really hard. I’ve been a ghostwriter for a few months now. The greatest problem I’ve had is following up on my cold DMs. For cold emails, I had Apollo which followed up automatically after a day, 2 days, 1 week, etc. I never wanted to track DMs in a spreadsheet or spend my little time as a student, 9–5er, and pastor trying to figure out who to follow up on.

That’s how DMfollow was born. I needed something to help me automate followups in my DMs and you need one too.

Exocortex (Offload)

I had had sleepless nights for 4 days in 1 week.

It was annoying. The problem was that my mind was racing with ideas. I was looking for a way to dump my mind. I already did that through WhatsApp but the problem was that I never follow up on important things, and it was too hard to find information when I needed it.

I also wanted a lazy way to get a jump start on my numerous ideas. Here’s the idea itself:

I was thinking of building exocortex,

A second brain: The world’s first real one. It => takes text, audio, video, image input => remind you to follow up on tasks => automatically organize notes => does research for you => execute tasks

Imagine as a developer that you can record a voice note and your Jira board is updated with tasks for your next sprint. Or you’re a writer and you take a picture of a scene you want in your novel and you have 10 show not tell storylines ready. Yes you, you’re like me. Your mind is oversaturated with ideas. Why not dump it on your second brain and forget about it. It will give you a breakdown of what you need to do tomorrow. With one click, it gets your idea up and running.

Best of all, you will never forget anything cause you never needed to remember, your second brain syncs with your calendar and informs you.

Up for a chat?

I didn’t build this idea beyond the MVP stage for a simple reason. Someone had beat me to it. 2 years and $23.5 million ahead, they had beat me. Or maybe not?

Focusbuddy.tech

I’ve struggled with being productive mainly due to distractions.

I’ve done so many things to help myself,

blocking all movies and anime websites on all my devices.
blocking distracting YouTube channels.
putting time limits on my social media and checking them only at specific times.

You thought all this would work, but I would just sleep off. Foolish right?

A while back, I discovered studysteam and focusmate which are websites where you can be in a Zoom-style meeting with other people doing work online. I used it once but it didn’t work for me. I’ve also done live streams on YouTube and it worked quite a bit but there was no one with me so…

As I laid in bed having yet another sleepless night, I had the idea to build a SaaS where:

you could join a meeting with at least 2 people
with your whole screen shared and your camera on so you can’t do anything except what you tell your partner you’d be doing at the start of the session. Public commitment compels consistency — Robert Cialdini, Psychology of Influence

I’m not sure I’ll build this too either. I started going to the gym and it seems to have solved my discipline problems. It turns out the online gurus were not lying. I’ll have to study this phenomenon.

I’m currently accepting software development clients for my agency. You can refer people for a 10% referral fee (up to $1, 000).

I am also building AI knowledgebases for businesses.

Get my free ebook.

4 Ridiculously Simple Steps To Build A $1,000,000 Startup Before Building A Product.

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How to get $1,000,00 ideas even if you’re not a genius.
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