Ah, there's a dumb easy hack to figure out what ideas people will pay for. Search "I'd pay for" on Twitter and you'll find hundreds of posts from people talking about pain points and products they'd pay for to solve them.
Do this enough and you realize you have to filter through a lot of slop. slop. slop.
I created willpayforthis.com to accumulate high signal, high quality posts and save you some time.
I love thoughts from the community on how I can make it better, save you time, and help you work on the best ideas.
by Gooblebrai on 2/22/25, 9:16 PM
This project is one example of what made me lose faith on the Indie Hacker movement. Many "indiehackers" just started creating projects for other people that wanted to become indie hackers.
The value to society of many tech-based businesses lately is appalling. They feel more interested in grabbing your wallet first than in creating any actual value.
by huqedato on 2/22/25, 8:59 PM
"I created willpayforthis.com to accumulate high signal, high quality posts and save you some time" - Really ? How you filter for high signal, high quality posts to save me some time while paying you $20/month ? Otherwise I can search myself "I'd pay for" on Twitter for free. I don't see the added value for your product.
by mritchie712 on 2/22/25, 8:20 PM
these are things people *say* they will pay for.
They're saying this on twitter for likes. It's different from what they or the org they work for actually thinks.
you're better off asking yourself, "would I pay for this" and being brutally honest.
by andrewfromx on 2/22/25, 7:23 PM
by cellis on 2/22/25, 8:13 PM
Maybe we need a "What would you pay for?" thread on HN every month.
by agnishom on 2/22/25, 7:56 PM
Where is the tweet that says people will pay for willpayforthis.com?
by szszrk on 2/22/25, 8:34 PM
by jll29 on 2/22/25, 8:09 PM
I will pay $500/500€ for a 500g subnotebook with a proper keyboard (a la ThinkPad), A5/11" b/w e-Ink screen and a battery that lasts for a week. No hires graphics card, no GPU, 1 CPU (1-4 ARM cores, possibly RasPi-based), 16 GB RAM + 1 TB SSD suffice. (Doesn't have to have much compute power, as it would ba a reading/writing/editing appliance.)
I would pay a LOT for whoever reactivates my collection of RIM BlackBerries.
by IncreasePosts on 2/22/25, 7:46 PM
Beware: as I'm sure most people intrinsically understand, it's much easier to say you'd pay for something than it is to actually bust out your wallet
by gatienboquet on 2/22/25, 7:46 PM
Added to my website iwontpayforthis.com
by thot_experiment on 2/22/25, 8:59 PM
I would not pay for this. :P
by ripped_britches on 2/22/25, 7:52 PM
This would be a more compelling site if there was evidence that people were tweeting “I’d pay for a mobile app to hail rides from freelancers” before ridesharing existed. But I doubt that was occurring.
by nativeit on 2/22/25, 9:28 PM
This is a great idea to put together for fun and/or to show off some skills. The moment (very early on) it asks me to purchase access to it was when it became a cheap money grab, of the sort I’d pay never to see again.
by gatienboquet on 2/22/25, 8:22 PM
by drivingmenuts on 2/22/25, 11:19 PM
So, basically a newer version of halfbakery.com? Which is kind of the SCP of stoner ideas, but maybe less well-edited.
by jongjong on 2/22/25, 8:21 PM
The hard part is a lot of people say they will pay for stuff but they won't... They just want to present themselves on social media as being the kind of person who would pay for that.
Once put in front of a paywall, a whole bunch of doubts can pop up out of nowhere and for no particular reason. Maybe the user just doesn't trust the app sufficiently to give money. Insufficient brand recognition to cross the threshold to actually pay.
by androng on 2/23/25, 6:00 PM
I think a better way to validate ideas is to go to acquire.com and actually see what people are paying for already. They are frequently 1 person businesses and already have paying customers
by throwaway81523 on 2/22/25, 9:39 PM
Ideas are a dime a dozen. Execution is everything. Well, marketing is everything, with execution a close second.
by j_burner on 2/22/25, 9:37 PM
It's interesting that this is being posted on Y-Combinator, which is exactly what this company does.
by zmz88 on 2/22/25, 8:36 PM
When you say "Lifetime", is that my lifetime or yours?
by androng on 2/22/25, 9:29 PM
If you had some further validation like someone actually clicking pay besides someone just saying they would pay for it then the website would be worth paying for. You should just give the tweet database away for free and then charge for the actual validation. I think your website still has value though, I know users saying they would pay is step one on the way to paying
by anon115 on 2/23/25, 6:59 AM
likes & or what people say vs actual paying customers; conversion rate is much lower man.
by abetancort on 2/22/25, 9:52 PM
Being frank this is utter garbage.
by sampton on 2/22/25, 8:15 PM
A buck a tweet.
by anacrolix on 2/23/25, 9:11 AM
fuck way to make me the product lol.
by JTyQZSnP3cQGa8B on 2/22/25, 7:42 PM
> You need to enable JavaScript to run this app.
Fix that. And when it's enabled all the twitter links are broken anyway. Find a way to show something useful on that landing page without downloading 100 MB of JS files first.
Last but not least, users may not be the best clients for you as they always need random impossible things, and they may not be prepared to pay for all the crap they are asking on twitter. I guess that most of the time it's joking or venting.