How makers stay productive

For https://thisappwillgiveyouabs.com/calculator I was tired of not being 'in shape' and wanted hard numbers and data to make progress.

A pain point that I needed to solve quickly:

I was a Windows user for a long time and used OneNote and Notepad++ for note taking. But one day, my OneNote Notebook got corrupted and was not recoverable. And then I switched to Mac at work where there is no Notepad++. So I tried many different tools, but none really helped me to write down my thoughts/input/meeting notes/… really fast. First persist the info, then organise later. With a lightning fast fuzzy search (as I make typos here and there :D).

Then, end of 2021, I had an overload of information and I really wanted to dump my brain somewhere. That's how I started with my app Braindump :D

It was something that I had struggled with personally. Upon doing research, while there were other solutions out there I wanted to take a different approach.

The idea that became Canua (https://www.canua.com) grew from an earlier idea around financial literacy education for kids. In the course of doing customer discovery and speaking to loads of parents, I realized 2 things: First, the business model for that idea was insanely difficult. Second, all the parents I was talking to were struggling with how to manage their finances. I kept hearing stories about the complexity of working remotely, being digital nomads or expats, or just having startup stock and crypto investments that made their finances hard to understand.

It helps that I'm an expat (and startup person and crypto investor) myself so the pain is something I'm very familiar with. I was also drawn to the idea because of how many other companies have tried to solve for personal finances and how there haven't yet really been any super successful companies in the space. I guess I'm a sucker for a hard challenge! 😂

I usually build products for pain points that I have. I run a bill payment platform https://nyangapay.com and I wanted a nice way for customers to send me support messages on WhatsApp since it's the most preferred channel in Cameroon. This lead me to my next product https://superbutton.app

It's a actually finding different things at the same time

1. Problem
2. Your passion about solving problem
3. Potential user who struggle with this problem

Same story behind Tresna -> https://tresna.typedream.app/

Uncut.fm, my project, seamlessly blends my expertise as a tech entrepreneur, investor, and podcaster. Our goal is to empower creators to develop decentralized communities and align incentives with their most ardent supporters.

I guess product ideas came from problem + monetization you want to solve

Everything started with simple chaos at my job place. Our team was drowning in an overwhelming sea of information and struggling with constant and redundant file and knowledge management. Exactly that time, the idea to create something like Sense https://www.senseapp.ai/ was born! Fully automatic single source of truth, where all your files, docs, chats, and all assets from various apps are organised.