It Starts With an Idea

Posted by Joe Zwack

January 5, 2010

Forum user Pricedit recently posted on the Remix forum asking for success stories with the Remix API. Myself and Steve named off a few (ShopSavvy, Milo, CamelBuy, Google integration, etc). He mentioned he was looking for responses from fellow indie developers. You can follow the thread here.

Since it’s a good topic, I thought it would be a good idea to post my response up on the blog and see if I can generate some good discussion around the topic.

It all starts with an idea, the key here is a unique idea. Most of those ideas are either:
1) Something nobody else is doing
2) A way to do it better than someone else is doing it now

It shouldn’t matter if they only use Best Buy data, other data sources in conjunction with Remix, or decide not to use Remix at all. I’ve had this conversation with many developers over email recently, the first question I ask after they tell me their idea is “How is what you are doing different or better than X or Y or Z?” That’s the first question you have to ask yourself. Not only that but how are you going to market that difference? How do you tell people your idea is better and they should use it?

I’ve said it in previous articles, but lets say you are creating a site or application that basically does the same thing that BestBuy.com does. Why would people use it when they can just go to BestBuy.com? Now same scenario, except you have a set of 5 features that BestBuy.com does not have. When someone comes to your site do they know that on the home page? Do you communicate that in search results? Do you talk about it where you can? If not then you aren’t showing off why your application is more powerful than what’s already out there.

Take basic marketing for BestBuy.com for example. One of our key offerings is in-store pickup for products purchased online. It’s promoted quite a bit in our ads and online, right?

Also keep in mind that things you develop by yourself may get you noticed by other companies who wish to have you do something for them based on your current work. There are multiple different ways these stories can play out.

What we promise to do is provide data, support and assistance where we can to help you with your idea. If you need someone to bounce ideas off of or another perspective I’m happy to do that. With our upcoming portal improvements there will be a new sample gallery that is easier for me to update and maintain. I don’t see any reason that we can’t put most applications in there. That would also help with getting noticed.

Again the call to action here is the same as in previous articles, what are you doing that’s unique? How do you stand out in the crowd? Also with that, how can I help?

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