The Product Ideas Newsletter #2

programmable attention, human desire, and vendor lock-in risks

3 Prompts

• What is something that is currently only used by an avantgarde that you could make more widely available?

• What is something where you find yourself saying "I should not have to do x"?

• What kind of business do we end up with if we mix Dribbble with Groupon?

2 Opportunities

• People are becoming increasingly conscious just how harmful it is to be interrupted all the time. On the other hand, “programmable attention” as a useful tool is heavily underutilized. A great example is spaced repetition and journaling practices. Moreover, my product idea prompt generator (if used regularly) is also a “programmable attention” tool. What else can be accomplished in a similar way?

• Out-of-the-box solutions like Medium are great to get started quickly. But once you’re a bit more successful, it makes sense to start worrying about the implications of vendor lock-in risks. Where is this currently happening? (Shopify, Substack,…) And what could you create for people who want to get out? (One possibility would be a transfer service for people who want to move from the platform to a solution they have more control over. For example, from Substack to Ghost. There is already a Substack-like theme for Ghost.)

1 Thought

“Take a human desire, preferably one that has been around for a really long time...Identify that desire and use modern technology to take out steps." - Ev Williams