The Trap of Revolutionary Ideas
We developers always have innovative and genius ideas. Ideas that break the pattern, that change the game, that nobody's ever done before. That's great and part of the field. Haven't you experienced this yet? Are you going to tell me you've never thought "This idea is going to make me a millionaire!"??
But there's a point that took me a while to understand: the focus doesn't always have to be on creating something never done before. It took me a while to realize that many famous software products already existed before. What changed wasn't the idea, it was the problem focus.
I'm an iOS developer and several times I've thought "I want to make an app for Y". Right after came the classic doubt: "why would anyone download mine if there are already millions like it?". This question always held me back.
Two Concepts That Changed My Mind
Until I started studying two concepts that changed the way I think about products:
Incremental innovation and Challenge Based Learning (CBL), which I saw during the Apple Developer Academy program.
Incremental innovation is an old concept in product strategy. Instead of trying to create a new idea, the focus shifts to improving something that already exists using real context, practical limitations, and direct user experience. It's not reinventing the wheel, it's adjusting the wheel for a specific scenario.
CBL, used by Apple in educational and development contexts, starts from another logic: you don't start with the solution. You start with the problem. First define the concrete problem, then investigate the context, and only then think about implementation. Instead of asking "what app am I going to create?", you start asking "what real problem do I want to solve?".
This really helps you get out of the mentality of needing to create something revolutionary all the time.
My Own Example: A Simple Notification App
A while ago I decided to create a simple app for myself. Its objective was very simple: I wanted to receive notifications for content I cared about without constantly checking email or websites. That's it. No glamour or innovations.
This was my pain point, extremely specific, right? But as a dev, the idea of programming something for days/weeks to solve a super small problem is very enchanting!!! hahaha
After implementing the MVP with notifications working through cloud functions and cronjobs, I thought: "Perfect! It works. Maybe someone else wants this too".
But then came the usual question: "but why would anyone use this if the website already exists?".
That's when I realized I was looking at this the wrong way. The question wasn't whether the app was innovative. It was whether it solved a real need, even if small.
My Current Approach
Since then, before starting any new project, I've been trying to go through something like this:
- What is the real annoyance/problem?
- In what situation does this happen?
- Do other people feel this pain besides me?
- What solutions already exist and what exactly do they solve or fail to solve?
- Can I solve this in a simpler or more direct way?
Only after this do I think about stack, design, features, etc.
Most of the time this leads to a small, very specific project that solves a slice of the problem, the famous MVP validation. And that's exactly what incremental innovation usually is: local adjustments to real problems, not complete product reinvention.
In the end, the mistake usually isn't in creating something that already exists. The mistake is usually starting with the solution without properly understanding the problem.
Final Thoughts
The key takeaway? Start with the problem, not the solution. Most successful projects aren't revolutionary ideas, they're practical solutions to real pain points.
Next time you have an idea, ask yourself: what problem am I actually solving? For whom? Is this a real need or just a cool feature?
Sometimes the best projects are the ones that improve something that already exists, rather than trying to create something entirely new.
References to Learn More:
CBL:
Incremental Innovation: