How to Find Your Next Business Idea
Lessons from a 109-Minute Indie Mastermind, hosted by Ayush
Last Thursday (June 12, 2025), I sat in a Zoom room with fellow Indie makers and creators, sipping chai and taking furious notes. It was an Indie Masterminds session titled "Business Idea Generation" hosted by Ayush Chaturvedi—maker, mentor, and one of the clearest thinkers I know in the solopreneur space.
What followed was 109 minutes of brain-melting clarity.
We didn't just talk about “finding ideas.” We talked about spotting signals in noise, avoiding common traps, and building businesses the right way—from the inside out.
Here’s a distilled version of the most powerful lessons I walked away with.
1. Start Where the Money Already Flows
This is rule #1: don’t chase original ideas. Chase validated demand. Vikash didn’t sit under a tree meditating until BulkMockup came to him in a vision—he stumbled upon it while trying to start a t-shirt business. The pain was real. So was the money.
Forget about building another to-do list app or solving vague problems. Real opportunities hide inside real frustration with a wallet attached.
2. Mine Marketplaces and Communities
Ayush G and Karthik did something simple and brilliant: they dug into DocuSign’s negative reviews. Found customers complaining about pricing. Built SignWith, a lean, pay-per-document alternative.
That’s it.
This “marketplace mining” idea came up again and again—Upwork gigs, Fiverr tasks, subreddits, YouTube comments. People are already telling you what they hate, what they need, and what they’re willing to pay for.
You just have to listen with a founder’s ear.
3. Distribution Is the New Product
Here’s the hard truth: building a great product is no longer enough. Distribution—your audience, your reach, your relationships—is the real moat.
A creator with 10K followers and a mediocre product will often outperform a founder with a masterpiece and no audience.
Why? Because attention is leverage.
Build in public. Teach while you build. Share your learnings. Distribution compounds faster than features.
4. Pre-Validate or Suffer Later
Landing pages. Fake door tests. Presales. Even writing your sales copy before you build.
These aren’t hacks—they’re sanity-saving strategies. They protect you from wasting 6 months building something nobody wants.
One insight that stuck: “Writing good sales copy is the fastest way to find out if your idea makes sense.” If you can’t sell the idea, maybe it’s not the idea.
5. Deep Niche, Deep Insight
This might’ve been the most underrated idea from the session: embed yourself in a niche community—then stay there for years.
The best ideas don’t come from brainstorming sessions. They come from belonging—to a group of people you genuinely care about. Their struggles become your roadmap.
That’s how clarity compounds.
6. Avoid These Traps
Ayush called out some red flags worth printing and pinning to your wall:
If there’s no competition, there’s probably no market.
If your price is below $20/month, you’ll attract the wrong kind of customer.
Labor arbitrage = short-term gains, long-term burnout.
Products that rely on holidays/festivals are hard to scale.
7. Trends Worth Exploring
Some juicy areas worth exploring, especially if you're thinking of placing your next bet:
Mental health & screen addiction tools (I’m thinking of building a AI-augmented journaling tool/ course/ community)
AI-powered assistants for freelancers
Voice interfaces & audio-first experiences
The silver economy (products for aging users)
Industry-specific tools: auto services, law, education
Bonus: form builders and scheduling apps are still quietly profitable. Boring is beautiful.
Final Thought: Ideas Are Cheap, Execution Isn’t
This session reminded me of one core truth: ideas are worthless without momentum. You can pick any strategy—Upwork gigs, Chrome extensions, content SEO—but commit for 3–6 months, and iterate based on real feedback.
The Indie way isn’t about perfection. It’s about staying close to the customer, solving one real pain at a time, and letting momentum do the rest.
Want to be part of conversations like these?
Join the Indie Masterminds community by Ayush Chaturvedi—a great mentor, builder, and friend.
You’ll find clarity, community, and maybe—your next big idea.