Are you a great developer, but are you struggling to know what to build?

• You know you have the technical proficiency to build something great.
• You want to own a product on your own (and cough all its profits).

But... you don't know where to start?

I'd suggest you considering Upwork.

It's where I've found my product idea for my recent side project. Let me explain how.

Here's how it works:

1. You sign up for an Upwork account.
2. You start taking on new projects.
3. You discover some patterns on projects that you could easily automate.
4. You sell that automation outside of Upwork (NOT to Upwork clients).

The fourth point is important. Upwork has a fast trigger finger to ban accounts.

One strike? You're done and out. So you absolutely want to follow Upwork's Terms of Services.

Here's why it works

Sounds simple, right?

Upwork is an ecosystem of super hot leads that want to buy solutions to their problems now.

As a developer, we often make the mistake of building cool shit, that in the end...

... drum roll...

... nobody wants.

So Upwork helps you validate ideas quickly by finding out what people already pay for.

Here's how this looks like in practice:

I signed up for Upwork at the end of 2023 out of necessity. My run-rate for my startup was running dry, so I needed extra income.

A thing that I'm good at, outside of coding, is marketing. So I started offering marketing services on Upwork.

After some time, I've realized that a decent number of companies and individuals are looking for help creating Wikipedia articles.

• These were noteworthy companies and individuals that deserve a Wikipedia entry.
• But because no one has written one yet, they're looking for people who do.

Writing Wikipedia articles differs from writing blog posts (my regular gigs on Upwork), so I gave it a shot for a company anyway.

And... it worked!

So - could I automate it?

How the side project was born

Here's what I did to create the side project:

• Use OpenAI's API
• Use my Frontend and Backend skills with Next.js
• Get OAuth working
• Use my designer hat
• Launch it on ProductHunt

And voilà - I got the first few sales!

PS: The side project is currently at about $300/mo - so not very large. If you are remotely interested, you can check it out here. Wikipedia Article AI