Ideas Lab
Real problems people complain about online, pulled every morning and scored out of 100. Build, validate, or skip. How scoring works
- Ideas
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- 702
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- 3h ago
Manually rebasing PRs waiting for dependencies
PRs often depend on other PRs that need to be merged first, requiring manual waiting and rebasing of branches each time.
X8mo agoToolDev
Manual verification of deployments due to unreliable APIs
After an API returned success but failed to apply a DNS change correctly, leading to 18 hours of downtime, now manually verifying every deployment before downtime periods like Shabbos because monitoring doesn't catch the issue.
X7mo agoToolDev
Manually reviewing code despite AI tools
Still manually reviewing and annotating code even with Anthropic and other AI code review tools available, feeling like a loser for not having full automation.
X7mo agoToolDev
App Store submission service
Indie app developers spend excessive time preparing and submitting apps to the App Store, dealing with compliance and review processes, needing a guaranteed service to handle it all.
X7mo agoOtherDev
Apple developer device provisioning nightmare
Developers encounter confusing dashboards and convoluted steps to un-provision old devices and provision new ones for app installation and testing in Apple's ecosystem.
X9mo agoToolDev
How to Get Responses on Reddit DMs and Turn Them Into Sales
Follow these steps: 1. Find the Right Communities Collect 10 subreddits where your target audience is active. Focus on communities where people discuss problems related to your product or service. 2. Understand Their Problems Read posts and comments to identify: Frequently asked questions Common frustrations Challenges your audience faces This helps you understand what people really need. 3. Send a Personalized Welcome Message Use r/DMdad to send a ready-made welcome message, but personalize it automatically. This will help you: Avoid being flagged as spam Increase reply rates Start a natural conversation 4. Help First Once someone replies, focus on helping them before selling. At this stage: Answer their questions Give useful advice Solve part of their problem for free The goal is to build trust at the MOFU (Middle of Funnel) stage. 5. Present an Irresistible Offer After providing value, introduce your solution.
Reddit7mo agoToolDev
Developers waste weeks building custom scrapers and integrations for websites without APIs
Developers and businesses need data or functionality from websites that don't offer public APIs, forcing them to build fragile custom scrapers or integrations that break with site updates. This manual work takes weeks, requires constant maintenance, and delays projects. Teams either accept this overhead or abandon valuable data sources entirely.
Product Hunt8mo agoToolDev
Built my side project with vibe coding. almost shipped chaos. specs saved it. here’s my workflow
i’m building a small side project right now and i went full vibe mode at the start. it was fun until i realized the same thing keeps happening the AI ships fast, and then i spend 2x time unshipping the “helpful” extras so i switched to a simple process that keeps speed but adds adult supervision what i’m building a small SaaS style tool. FastAPI backend, Next frontend, Supabase for auth and db what changed everything for me i write a tiny spec for every feature before i let any tool touch code my spec template goal in one sentence non goals so it doesn’t add random features files allowed to change api contract. request response errors acceptance checks. exact steps to verify rollback plan. what to revert if it breaks my workflow 1 brain dump into Traycer AI and it turns it into a clean checklist spec 2 implement in small chunks with Claude Code or Codex 3 use Copilot for boring glue edits 4 run tests and force the tool to paste command output. no output. not done example acceptance checks i actually use auth try call endpoint with no token. should fail call with valid token. should pass rate limit hit endpoint 30 times fast. should start returning 429 db confirm Supabase RLS blocks cross user reads why i’m posting i’m curious if other side project people do specs like this or if you just raw vibe it and fix later also if you have any good tricks to stop agents from doing “bonus refactors” nobody asked for i want them if you want i can share the exact spec template file i keep in my repo. it’s short and it’s saved me a stupid amount of time
Reddit8mo agoToolDev
i keep a spreadsheet of every "why doesn't this exist" post i find online. here are the patterns after 6 months
started doing this as a personal exercise and got kind of obsessed. every time i find someone online describing a problem and asking why nobody's built a solution, i log it. the source, upvotes, industry, existing alternatives, and what's missing. 6 months and hundreds of entries later, clear patterns emerged that i didn't expect. **pattern 1: the word "overkill" is the strongest buying signal on the internet** when someone describes a tool as "overkill" they're telling you three things. the problem is real. they're currently paying for a solution. and they'd switch to something simpler in a heartbeat. i started specifically searching for "overkill" across reddit and review sites. the hit rate for finding buildable opportunities is insane compared to searching "i wish there was." **pattern 2: the highest pain industries aren't tech** trades, healthcare admin, property management, and local services show up constantly. these people have budget, they're underserved by software, and developers don't build for them because the niches don't sound exciting. 22 separate posts about pet medication tracking. zero good tools. 14 threads about trade contractor scheduling. everything is built for office workers. 9 threads about personal trainers managing clients through whatsapp because every fitness app serves the gym member not the trainer. **pattern 3: the best opportunities have terrible competitors, not zero competitors** zero competitors usually means zero market. nobody wants it. 3 to 5 competitors with bad reviews is the sweet spot. the market is proven because people are paying. the execution is bad because people are complaining. you just need to be less terrible. 10+ well funded competitors means you're too late for the broad play. but zoom in. there's almost always a niche they're all ignoring. **pattern 4: "i've been doing this manually for X years" is worth more than any market research report** this phrase shows up everywhere once you start looking f
Reddit8mo agoToolDev
Monthly Getting Started / Web Dev Career Thread
Due to a growing influx of questions on this topic, it has been decided to commit a monthly thread dedicated to this topic to reduce the number of repeat posts on this topic. These types of posts will no longer be allowed in the main thread. Many of these questions are also addressed in the sub FAQ or may have been asked in [previous monthly career threads](/r/webdev/search?q=flair%3AMonthlyCareerThread&restrict_sr=on&sort=new&t=all). Subs dedicated to these types of questions include [r/cscareerquestions](/r/cscareerquestions) for general and opened ended career questions and [r/learnprogramming](/r/learnprogramming) for early learning questions. A general recommendation of topics to learn to become industry ready include: - [HTML/CSS/JS Bootcamp](https://www.udemy.com/course/javascript-beginners-complete-tutorial) - [Version control](https://www.atlassian.com/git/tutorials/what-is-version-control) - [Automation](https://blog.logrocket.com/tools-and-modern-workflow-for-front-end-developers-505c7227e917/) - [Front End Frameworks (React/Vue/Etc)](https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/complete-guide-for-front-end-developers-javascript-frameworks-2019/) - [APIs and CRUD](https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/crud-operations-using-vanilla-javascript-cd6ee2feff67/) - [Testing (Unit and Integration)](https://raygun.com/blog/javascript-unit-testing-frameworks/) - [Common Design Patterns](https://www.patterns.dev/) You will also need a portfolio of work with 4-5 personal projects you built, and a resume/CV to apply for work. Plan for 6-12 months of self study and project production for your portfolio before applying for work.
Reddit8mo agoToolDev
What product do you think it worth to build now?
I'm a solo dev looking for my next project. Currently interested in AI tools, developer APIs, and automation. What problems are you facing that nobody has built a good solution for yet? Or what existing tool do you wish was better/cheaper? Looking for real pain points, not "build another todo app" 😄
Reddit8mo agoToolDev
My client just asked me to do the 'SEO' for their site. I'm a dev..
I build and maintain websites for a handful of small business clients. One of them messaged me asking if I can help with their SEO because they're not showing up high on Google. I can handle the technical stuff fine like page speed, structured data, fixing crawl errors, meta tags. But they want more than that, they want to know why their competitor outranks them, what keywords to target, whether their content is any good etc...I don't have a background in marketing or seo. I've been patching things together using 4 different tools and honestly it's taking more time than the actual dev work. Is there a decent way to handle this as a solo dev ? Or do I just tell them it's out of scope? (To be honest I really need the extra money for this seo work) **Update:** appreciate all the advice here 🙏 I’m gonna keep doing the SEO for them and treat it as a paid learning sprint for me too, it could be a solid extra income stream. I’ve been juggling ahrefs + SurferSEO + Screaming Frog + GSC and it’s too much, I’m gonna switch to SeenOS for most of the workflow and only pull out Screaming Frog when I need a deep crawl
Reddit8mo agoToolDev
Running open source AI agents requires expensive infrastructure management and DevOps expertise
Developers and teams want to use OpenClaw, a popular open source AI agent, but hosting it themselves demands significant infrastructure costs (Mac mini servers), continuous monitoring, security patching, and DevOps knowledge. Many lack these resources or expertise, forcing them to either abandon the tool or spend weeks on setup and maintenance instead of building their actual application logic.
Product Hunt8mo agoToolDev
Developers waste weeks building and managing backend infrastructure for AI agent applications
AI developers and teams currently spend significant time setting up databases, APIs, authentication, and deployment infrastructure before their AI agents can do anything useful. They either build custom backends (slow, error-prone) or cobble together multiple services (complex, expensive to maintain). This delays getting AI agents to production and distracts from the actual AI logic that provides value.
Product Hunt8mo agoToolDev
High costs and complexity of API integration for launching a travel website
ProblemHunt11mo agoToolDev
Need simple application testing tool without programming
ProblemHunt1y agoToolDev
Live threat monitoring for SOC teams with incident visualization and prioritization
ProblemHunt1y agoToolDev
Automated hosting comparison tool for developers
ProblemHunt1y agoToolDev