iFarts of today
jasonleow • 18 Feb 2024 •
This! 🤣🤣🤣
Also, remember Flappy Bird? Those were the good old days, when the App Store platform was new and it was like the wild west gold rush for app developers.
The conditions for that level of opportunity seems to be:
- New platform/tech - What are today’s new platforms and tech?
- Novelty factor - What’s novel and fascinating?
- Lack of competition (yet) - What’s not caught on with developers yet?
- Huge demand - What’s new yet are great at painkilling, entertaining, educating?
Makes me wonder… What’s the iFart equivalent of a $10k/day app today?
- Web3
- Crypto
- Meme coins
- NFTs
- AI wrapper apps (GPT-3)
- AI photo apps
- AI girlfriends/boyfriends
- Chat with PDFs, documents
- AI assistants
- Vision Pro apps
- AR/VR/spatial computing
- Sora/AI video apps
Of course, not all of them solved real problems – looking at you meme coins. Some some of crypto were ethically grey. But all were the iFarts of their time. A technological gold rush.
As an indie hacker and someone who wants to build a sustainable income stream , I recognise not all are solid opportunities. Many are probably fads – fun, one-off opportunities to make a bunch of money.
But find a good niche that the tech/platform could solve, serve a real problem, deliver it well on a repeatable distribution channel, and they might end up being sound businesses.
What else are the iFarts of today?
Comments
I remember before the App Store, the extra space on the original iPhone home page was referred to as the most valuable tech real estate in the world.
@phaidenbauer Yes these type of products are not long term plays for sure. Could work in a portfolio of products where one has 1 or 2 long term products, and occasionally toy around with short term money grabs just for fun and profit? Don’t think it has to be an either/or
@therealbrandonwilson That’s a brilliant way of saying it. Many a billion dollar startup was built on that real estate.
I think the problem with such short-lived trends like Flappy Bird is that they don’t generate a steady income. Sure, you might make a few 100k in a relatively short time, but afterwards, nobody cares about you. And if that money wasn’t live changing money, you will need to seek another viral opportunity, but what if that never happens again?
Don’t get me wrong, I could also use a few spare 100k, but if I could choose between 100k today or 10k/year over the next 10 or 20 years as side money, I would probably choose the latter. Although thinking about compound interest, the first one might be more attractive. Maybe I should make a quick excel sheet 🙈😂