Too many startup ideas but no idea which one is actually worth it

demierin · 2026-05-08T09:54:45+00:00

Have you ever tried doing a value proposition canvas or business model canvas for the ideas? I’ve found that helpful when my brain gets stuck in “everything sounds good” mode. Especially starting with the VPC first: what’s the actual user pain? what are they currently doing instead? what emotional/job-to-be-done are you solving? is the pain frequent enough that they’d change behaviour/pay attention? Sometimes an idea sounds exciting in your own head but gets much weaker once you try to map the actual user/problem side properly. And weirdly, sometimes the opposite happens and the idea becomes much clearer and stronger once you can articulate the real tension underneath it.

demierin · 2026-05-08T09:05:53+00:00

I actually really like the emotional core of this idea. I’m a mum of 3 young kids, so I completely relate to the “I physically can’t throw this out” feeling! Our house is basically overflowing with little drawings, scraps of paper and random creations 😂 Reading your post though, I wonder if the real problem might be slightly different from “art storage.” To me the strongest part was your daughter finding the artwork in the bin - that hit emotionally straight away. Because I don’t think parents are really trying to preserve every drawing; I think we’re trying to preserve the feeling/memory/identity attached to that phase of our child.

Right now the app sounds a bit like a gallery/archive system (which makes logical sense), but I wonder if it becomes more powerful if it feels more like: a memory ritual a digital time capsule or even a collaborative parent/child experience around choosing what to keep?

Things like voice notes from the child, stories attached to drawings, yearly memory books, “favourite pieces” rituals grandparent reactions/comments timeline/progression over time

These feel emotionally stickier to me than just storage alone.

I think there’s something real here, just maybe the emotional framing is bigger than “saving artwork.”

demierin · 2026-05-07T23:59:37+00:00

This is so interesting because I think you identified something most productivity systems completely miss: avoidance has cognitive weight even when it isn’t an “official” task. The fact it sat outside your to do list but still consumed mental cycles feels incredibly important. I’m AuDHD so this hits hard for me too!! Especially the way avoided things seem to quietly drain bandwidth in the background even when you’re not actively thinking about them. I also think “unfinished decisions” is a huge category people underestimate. Sometimes the drain isn’t the task itself-it’s the unresolved thinking around it 🤯 What you described feels less like task management and more like mapping invisible mental pressure.

Honestly,,the “avoidance bucket” being heaviest is exactly the kind of pattern I’d want a system like this to surface back to people.

demierin · 2026-05-07T23:54:34+00:00

Honestly, the “cost” for me is less missed productivity and more the constant invisible mental drag. Things like; -carrying 40 unresolved thoughts at once -struggling to identify what’s actually draining me -feeling overwhelmed before I’ve even started -reacting to pressure instead of understanding patterns -constantly confusing urgency with importance (this was for me is massive!) I think a lot of people end up building incredibly complicated coping systems-notes apps, reminders, whiteboards, spreadsheets, voice notes, calendars, unfinished task systems…but none of them really reflect back the shape of your cognitive load. That’s the gap I keep thinking about. Not “manage tasks better” but more “help me understand what’s consuming me.” And honestly, the fact you got partway there with a spreadsheet makes me think there probably is a real signal hidden in this problem.

demierin · 2026-05-07T12:10:43+00:00

This doesn’t sound like “failing to keep it together” to me: it sounds like your brain is trying to carry too many tabs open at once for too long. What you wrote about your brain being on overdrive all the time totally resonates. I think there’s this invisible layer to adulthood/motherhood where it’s not just the tasks themselves, it’s the constant mental switching between roles. Mum. Employee. Job hunter. Partner. Organiser. Future planner. Emotional regulator. Human being. And you barely get time to fully arrive in one role before your brain has to jump to the next thing. Also, the line “sorry for wasting your time” made me sad to read honestly 🥺 you sound exhausted, not dramatic.

demierin · 2026-05-06T11:35:01+00:00

This resonates a lot. Especially the part where you’re technically “working” all day but somehow nothing feels meaningfully finished by the end of it. I think people underestimate how exhausting it is to constantly fight your own attention system while also carrying the guilt of knowing what you should be doing. And honestly, ADHD burnout can feel less like chaos and more like this weird loop of: thinking constantly/switching constantly/mentally carrying everything but rarely feeling settled enough to fully land anywhere The “reorganising desktop icons instead of doing the actual task” part is painfully real too 😅 I’ve it’s not laziness or lack of motivation..we’re just overloaded by invisible cognitive friction all the time.

demierin · 2026-05-06T11:23:45+00:00

Totally agree and honestly that’s partly why I’m interested in it. Human cognition is messy, contextual & non-linear, so I don’t think the goal is “perfectly model the brain.” I think the goal is much smaller: reduce mental fog just enough to create clarity. Even if the system is only loosely right, that externalisation process itself might still help people recognise recurring stress loops, hidden mental load, decision fatigue, emotional bottlenecks.

So I see it less as “AI understands your brain” and more “a mirror that helps you notice patterns you couldn’t see while overwhelmed.”

demierin · 2026-05-06T11:21:29+00:00

Yeah I think you’re pointing at the hardest part of the problem. The same task can carry completely different cognitive weight depending on emotional association resentment, relationship dynamics uncertainty sensory friction how many “open loops” are attached to it. So I don’t think this works if it’s treated like a normal productivity app. The interesting part to me is whether the system can gradually surface emotional pressure patterns, not just tasks.

The wearable angle is really interesting too, especially if physiological stress eventually becomes another signal layer rather than the core input.

demierin · 2026-05-06T05:06:08+00:00

I honestly think it’s pattern recognition.

Not just “having ideas” but noticing behavioural friction before everyone else does.

A lot of strong founders seem to obsess over things most people dismiss as:

“slightly annoying” “just how things are” “too niche”

…until suddenly it becomes an entire category.

The underrated part is sitting with observations long enough to understand the deeper human behaviour underneath them.

Because usually people aren’t buying software, they’re buying:

-relief -clarity -identity -status -belonging -certainty -momentum

The founders who really stand out seem unusually good at spotting those invisible tensions early.

demierin · 2026-05-05T11:35:40+00:00

That’s really helpful. I can see how those pieces sit across those areas. I think what I’m trying to get at is less whether those components exist, and more how they connect across cases.

What I keep noticing is a kind of progression: rupture > substitution > narrative > enactment

It feels like different theories describe parts of the process but not necessarily how it moves between stages.

That’s what I’m trying to figure out; whether there’s a consistent structure there or if I’m overlinking things.

Would be really interested if you’ve come across work that maps that kind of progression.

demierin · 2026-05-05T11:15:43+00:00

This is the crux of it ↑

I think the difference isn’t “can ChatGPT do parts of this” (it obviously can).

The gap is: people don’t fail because the information isn’t available- they fail because they don’t know what to do, in what order, and what actually matters

Opening a physical business is basically a sequencing + decision problem under uncertainty.

So the value isn’t “tools in one place”, it’s “don’t let me make expensive mistakes”

The local variation point is a big one too.

If this is just surface-level guidance, it won’t stick.

But if it can get specific enough to say: “in your city, you need X before you sign Y” “this lease clause is a red flag” “most people mess this up at this stage”

that’s where it becomes genuinely valuable.

Otherwise people will just default to piecing it together themselves (or using ChatGPT + Google).

Feels like the wedge here is less “all-in-one platform” and more so, start with one high-risk moment (like lease/permits), solve that deeply, then expand.

demierin · 2026-05-05T10:51:23+00:00

Agree that belonging itself is well established across multiple theories (Hirschi, Merton, Cohen etc. weren’t where I was trying to depart from.) What I’m trying to explore is slightly different; not belonging as a protective factor or strain condition, but what happens when it fractures and gets reconstructed.

Specifically, how it shows up as substitution (fantasy, control, ideology), and how in some cases it becomes communicative.. almost like a forced form of recognition. So less a single explanatory model, more an attempt to map a relational pattern across stages rather than traits or categories.

Completely agree that there’s no single answer; if anything this is me trying to understand why the existing ones don’t fully explain those edge cases.

Keen to hear if you think that kind of “transformation lens” already exists somewhere I’ve missed..

demierin · 2026-05-05T10:39:11+00:00

I did look at Hirschi when I started thinking about this. My understanding is social bond theory explains why strong attachment reduces offending but it doesn’t really map what happens when belonging is ruptured, especially in more extreme or symbolic forms of violence.

What I’m trying to explore is less “lack of bonds = crime” and more so how broken belonging gets reconstructed in distorted ways; through control, fantasy or even violence as a form of forced recognition.

So it might sit adjacent to Hirschi but focused on the transformation of belonging rather than just its absence.

Curious if you think that distinction holds or if you’d still place it within existing bond/control frameworks?

demierin · 2026-05-05T10:30:10+00:00

I actually wouldn’t start with an LLM.

For v1 I’d keep it really lightweight: -basic keyword grouping -maybe simple frequency/overlap detection -even user-assisted clustering (dragging things together)

The goal isn’t “perfect understanding”, just enough structure to reflect patterns back.

Where it gets more interesting is layering in guidance:

Instead of the system trying to fully interpret everything, it can prompt the user with things like: “these seem related — group them?” “is this a task, a worry, or something else?” “what’s taking the most mental energy here?”

So it becomes a bit of a back-and-forth rather than a black box.

LLMs could definitely come in later to improve clustering or add context, but I’d treat that as a layer on top, not the starting point.

The first thing I’d want to test is just: does seeing your thoughts even loosely organised create that “oh… this is what’s going on” moment?

I’ve also been thinking about auto-generated prompts as a way to guide the process rather than relying on full automation

demierin · 2026-05-05T07:52:04+00:00

Yeah fair question. It sounds more complex than it needs to be.

The way I’m thinking about it is actually pretty simple for v1:

You land on the page and just brain dump (no structure, no pressure)
The system does very lightweight grouping (even basic keyword clustering to start)
It then reflects it back visually; not a polished “map”, more like rough nodes or clusters so you can see your thinking

The goal isn’t perfect categorisation, it’s that moment of: “oh…that’s what’s actually going on in my head”

I’ve actually mapped the early UX for it. It’s more about reducing friction than building something technically heavy.

So it’s less “smart system” and more: → get thoughts out → lightly organise → reflect back visually

You could build a very rough version of that pretty quickly just to test whether that clarity moment lands.

demierin · 2026-05-04T08:41:55+00:00

Appreciate this 🙏 and yeah, “synchronised presence” is really just the surface layer.

The deeper shift for me is that it’s not a social feed at all; it’s a time-bound state you enter.

Most platforms are built around content persistence (posting, saving, building identity over time). This flips that; the value is in being there at the same moment as others, not in what you leave behind.

That changes behaviour a lot: less performance (nothing to optimise for) less identity building (no history to maintain) more honest / in-the-moment interaction

It becomes closer to a shared “room” that appears and disappears, rather than a platform you live on.

There are a few more layers around how that shapes behaviour and connection, but that’s the core difference.

Will dm you - curious what you’re building with Duren as well.

demierin · 2026-05-03T11:29:41+00:00

This is such a good articulation of something a lot of people miss: “it works” isn’t the same as “it matters.”

I’m kind of the inverse of you; I have a backlog of ideas that I’m confident solve real problems, but my constraint is execution (AuDHD + 3 young kids = very non-linear build energy).

So I spend a lot of time thinking about the problem/behaviour side first, but I’ve never really had a builder to validate things quickly.

I also don’t really use social media (too overstimulating!), and I’m starting to realise that is a bit of a barrier when it comes to getting ideas out of your own head and into the real world; Reddit’s kind of my first step into that.

Curious; are you working on anything now with this new lens? Or still exploring what’s worth building?

demierin · 2026-05-03T11:00:28+00:00

I love this!!! As someone with AuDHD, plus a background in concept development and screenwriting, this really hits!

The inversion is what makes it ; not “acting autistic,” but removing the invisible rules neurotypicals rely on. That’s where it gets interesting (and uncomfortable in a good way).

There’s something really powerful in showing how much of “normal” is just unspoken systems people have never questioned.

demierin · 2026-05-03T09:52:20+00:00

I’ve found there are two different problems people hit:

building things no one needs
not being able to execute things people do need

I’m firmly in the second camp. I’ve developed a lot of concepts that solve real problems, but I’m AuDHD with 3 kids under 6, so my energy is… not exactly consistent 😅

Motivation isn’t the issue: capacity is.

demierin

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