How to Find High-Value Project Ideas on Reddit with a Simple Google Trick
5 min read
by Ufuk OzenSaaS
Indie Hacking
Project Ideas
Marketing
SEO
Reddit
Stop searching for startup ideas. Learn a simple Google search trick to mine Reddit for real-world problems that people are desperate to solve. This is how you find projects people will actually pay for.
How to Find High-Value Project Ideas on Reddit with a Simple Google Trick
Every developer, entrepreneur, and indie hacker faces the same daunting question: "What should I build next?" We often get caught up in chasing the latest tech trends or building solutions for problems we think people have. But what if you could find a constant stream of project ideas that people are actively asking for?
There's a goldmine of these ideas hiding in plain sight on Reddit. People go to Reddit to complain, ask for help, and express their frustrations. These pain points are your future projects. The best part? You don't need to spend hours manually scrolling through forums. All you need is a simple, powerful Google search trick.
The Strategy: Problem-First, Solution-Second
The most successful products solve a real, painful problem. Instead of starting with a cool technology and searching for a problem, this method flips the script. We're going to find the problems first.
This is where the Google search from the image comes in. It's a "Google dork"—a specific search query that uses advanced operators to filter results.
The Magic Google Dork
Here's the basic template. Copy and paste it into Google, but don't hit enter yet.
example.sh1site:reddit.com "is there any tool for"BASHUTF-8
This simple query tells Google to only search Reddit for the exact phrase "is there any tool for". You're tapping directly into conversations where users are looking for a solution that might not exist yet.
How to Customize It for Your Niche
The real power comes when you add your niche or area of interest. This helps you find problems you're actually passionate about solving.
Let's say you're interested in productivity:
example.sh1site:reddit.com "productivity" "is there any tool for"BASHUTF-8
Or maybe you're a web developer looking to build a SaaS for other devs:
example.sh1site:reddit.com "web development" "how do you handle"BASHUTF-8
Powerful Variations to Try
Don't stop with just one phrase. Here are more variations to uncover different types of problems:
example.sh1site:reddit.com "I wish there was an app for" 2 3site:reddit.com "[your niche]" "any alternative to" 4 5site:reddit.com "[your niche]" "I hate how" 6 7site:reddit.com "[your niche]" "manual process" 8 9site:reddit.com "looking for a tool that"BASHUTF-8
A Step-by-Step Guide to Finding Your Next Project
- Pick a Niche: Start with a topic you know and care about. It could be a hobby (like dnd), a professional skill (like seo), or a tool you use (like notion).
- Craft Your Search Query: Combine
site:reddit.comwith one of the problem-focused phrases in quotes. - Analyze the Results: Look for threads where the top comments are full of people agreeing that the problem is real. High upvote counts on the original post or comments are a strong signal of demand.
- Identify the Pain Point: What is the core frustration? Is it that existing tools are too expensive, too complicated, or missing a key feature?
- Validate the Idea:
- Is it a recurring problem? Search for the same problem using different keywords. Do you find multiple threads across different subreddits?
- Who is the customer? Are these hobbyists, small businesses, enterprise users? This will determine your pricing and marketing strategy.
- Would they pay? Look for phrases like "I would pay for this" or comments about the high cost of existing, imperfect solutions.
Real-World Example: Let's Find an Idea
Let's try one right now. We'll use the niche "Notion" and the phrase "I wish".
Search Query:
example.sh1site:reddit.com "notion" "i wish"BASHUTF-8
Potential Results:
- A thread on r/Notion with hundreds of upvotes titled: "I wish Notion had a better way to handle recurring tasks for habits."
- A comment saying: "I wish I could sync my Google Calendar events into a specific Notion database automatically without using a clunky third-party tool."
- A post on r/Productivity: "I wish I could turn a block of text in Notion into a simple flowchart automatically."
Boom. In just a few seconds, we have three potential high-value project ideas with proven demand:
- A habit-tracking plugin/wrapper for Notion.
- A seamless, real-time Google Calendar to Notion sync tool.
- An AI-powered text-to-flowchart generator for Notion.
These are specific, tangible problems that real users are facing. Building a solution for any of these is far less risky than building a generic "AI productivity app" from scratch.
Conclusion
Stop waiting for a genius idea to strike you like lightning. The best ideas are already out there, scattered across forums and communities. By using this simple Google search technique on Reddit, you can stop guessing what people want and start building what they're actively asking for.
Now it's your turn. Pick your niche, craft your query, and go find a problem worth solving.
