Adam Griffiths - Business: finding ideas and making them work

Hi, I'm Adam Griffiths, a Computer Science Student and Freelance Web Applications and CodeIgniter developer based in Shrewsbury, UK. I might only be 18 but I've written a book, maintained a popular blog and am one of the organisers behind CodeIgniter Con 2010, the first two-day UK conference and hack day for CodeIgniter.

Business: finding ideas and making them work

I have wanted to create my own web apps and work on them solely for quite a while now, and while that moment is quite a way away from becoming a reality, I can now spare the time to put some of the ideas I have into action. Previously I have always had school of college getting in the way of the kinds of things I'd really love to be creating. I never did always have many ideas until recently I started thinking differently.

Finding ideas

I had always thought that finding an idea for a web app would be extremely difficult. I wanted to build something that hadn't been attempted before; once I realised that pretty much everything had been attempted I could sit down and think of the kinds of apps I'd love to use myself. Here's how I came up with ideas.

Fill your own needs

My CodeIgniter libraries have always stemmed form a need I've had myself whilst working on a project, so I thought the best way to come up with ideas for products would be to fill my own needs. Unfortunately, most of my own needs are iPhone apps; and whilst one day I plan to implement all of these apps myself, that just isn't going to happen anytime soon.

Ask for them

Once I realised all my app ideas simply aren't going to happen any time soon. I needed another tactic. I simply asked for ideas on Twitter. I asked people what kind of apps they needed. One of those ideas seemed to gain a bit of popularity, so I decided to take the idea and run with it. This is possibly the easiest way to get somebody to eventually pay for an application, ask them what type of app they need and give it to them. It's likely that there won't just be that single person who needs the app, as is the case with the idea that @dreadfullyposh gave me. To build a CRM application that you can install on your own server.

Getting people to pay

A few people have asked me how I intend to get people to pay for products when there are other systems out there; solid, established systems. This is what I tell them.

Build a quality product

The first thing I need to do is simply build a quality product. By ensuring the stuff I build is solid, secure and actually fits its own purpose, people will be interested in it. It also helps that my first app is going to one that people have actually asked for.

Make it sexier/simpler/easier to use

When creating my authentication library, I needed to set it apart from the rest of the other libraries out there. So I made it extremely easy to use. I will apply exactly the same principle to this application, I'll make it simpler and easier to use than the competition. I always make stuff simple and easy to use, I guess I just like making peoples lives easier.

Offer something new or different

Following on from the last point, I'm going to be offering something different to the competition. Most of my competitors are cloud based, you can't install the application on your own server. I won't be doing that, you'll be able to download and install the code on your own server. It was requested on Twitter and is how I plan to make all my web apps easily downloadable and installable.

Now of course I do realise that just because a few people said on Twitter they would pay for an app, that doesn't mean when I release the application they will immediately buy it. Of course they won't, they'll need to evaluate it and see if it is good enough for them to use. I hope to make this easier by beta testing the application with a select few who will no doubt give me lots of constructive criticism and in turn it'll make the app an order of magnitude better. That and it'll have a really cool name. :)