Building an idea that you care about makes learning more effective and more fun. I would like for you all to come up with a handful of app ideas, from which we’ll choose one for your final project. We’re looking for an idea that would work well as the kind of software we’re building — cloud-based, browser-based, database-backed apps (like airbnb.com, yelp.com, etc).
To help generate ideas, I want you to read the essay How to Get Startup Ideas by Paul Graham. While we’re not trying to build startups — we’re just looking for good, small learning projects — the essay still provides good advice for coming up with ideas. Basically: look for unsolved problems in niches where you know more than the average person.
Then, start a list of pain points that you observe in your life that you might be able to solve with a small CRUD app. (I have a Note in my iPhone for collecting random ideas for apps to build.) In the coming weeks, you’ll turn in your app ideas and then we’ll select one to be your first project together.