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“Justineee! Thanks for joining Indie Mastermind. Tell me about what you are working on and how I can help you.”
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Ayush, the founder of Indie Masterminds – an entrepreneurial community I joined a few days prior – asked with an encouraging tone, unaware of my simmering frustration.
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I had just wrapped the experiment for my first business idea that hadn’t worked out. I was at the all too familiar crossroads of not knowing what business problem to pursue next.

Ayush presented a challenge that seemed...insane to my extremely picky brain.

"Here’s what you are gonna do. Open up any of these sites – Indie Hackers, AppSumo, Chrome web store, Slack app store or other marketplaces and pick a business. Any business! Do it by Sunday night at 11:59 PM, or I'll pick one for you."

I felt the involuntary arch of my eyebrow and twist of my face.

Is this guy mad? I have struggled for yearssss to pick a focus, and now, I should decide in 3 days.

Wah kinda crack dis guy smoking?

The simplicity and directness of his challenge were disarming. It clashed with the meticulous criteria I always applied to picking a business problem/idea to pursue.

What if I am not excited about any of the products in those marketplaces? And the alternative – having Ayush serve me a mystery meat dish of an idea I might not have an appetite for – felt insane. What if I hated his suggestion?

Despite the skepticism, I nodded in agreement.

My fingers drummed against the table to a rhythm that matched my mix of apprehension and budding intrigue. I had nothing to lose, yet there was still quiet questioning in the back of my mind. Could picking something have been this simple all along?

Once the apprehension wore off after the call, a flicker of excitement, quick and unexpected, surged through me. Why the heck hadn’t I thought of stealing an idea before?

With 3 days on the clock, I started looking into software app stores like Shopify rather than stand-alone web apps. This was based on the stair-step method advice from Rob Wailing in this article.

Sifting through 1000s of options from Bubble, Intercom, Airtable, Zoom, Hubspot, Chrome, Slack + more for hours made my eyes ache. It was now Saturday night, and I had wasted 2 days going through these options, and my basket was still empty.

I had no damn business looking through Bubble, Airtable, Intercom or Hubspot marketplaces, as I have 0 to little experience with these tools.
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Procrastination disguised as "productivity".

After getting nowhere with this initial over-analysis, I saw how the paralysis of choice had been a stumbling block for me. So, I narrowed my focus to the Chrome webstore and Slack apps since I have used them extensively.

With about 3 hours left to spare, one category of Slack apps caught my interest—access management. A recent run-in with this issue while working with a client had flagged this area in my mental map.

I picked a competitor to copy, and I scurried over to our Slack DM to let Ayush know what I selected, as it was already Sunday in his time zone.

As the relief of meeting the deadline evaporated, I sat there, staring at our conversation in disbelief. This is all I had to do all along. Just open up a marketplace and steal an existing idea. Disappointment in myself came over me in waves of 'could-have-beens.'

Had I embraced this approach sooner, I could have already had a few businesses under my belt, generating income. Maybe even a bloody life-changing exit.

Ok, I knew what to pursue next. But could I make a product by pulling from a hat?

Well, Richard Branson, the founder of Virgin Enterprises, is a prime example of someone who has used this approach. He experimented A LOT with ideas, some of which were unrelated and seemed to come from thin air.

He tried to create a business around Christmas trees, magazines, records, airlines, hotels, cruises, Cola, Vodka, Bridal, Clothing, Cosmetics, Publishing and more. None of his ventures were firsts in their industry. Instead, he excelled at throwing mud at the wall to see what would stick, executing them with a unique flair and better customer experience.

This image of Branson experimenting across industries lingered in my mind as I plotted my next steps. The usual worry for an entirely new idea was absent, and a sense of ease settled in.

No more chasing shadows for a 'never-before-seen' idea.

Instead, I was scooping a wet ball of mud and throwing it at the wall. To figure out how to get it to stick by adding a twist to an existing concept, and man, I finally felt on track.