The best product ideas are the tasks nobody wants to do

I don't know anyone who enjoys registering their guests.

Or anyone who enjoys chasing membership fees.

That's exactly why they interest me so much.

Here's how I think about it.

When people look for product ideas, they look towards the exciting stuff. The new, the beautiful, the thing that makes a great demo. That's natural: it's what you can see.

But the ideas that have worked best for me come from the opposite side. From the tasks everyone has to do, nobody enjoys, and nobody notices any more because they've become part of the furniture.

The best product ideas aren't hidden. They're the chores everyone has stopped seeing.

Two boring examples

Every holiday rental has to register each guest and send their details wherever the law requires. With every booking. Forget, and there's a fine. Nobody does it for fun, and almost everyone does it by hand.

Every club has to collect its members' fees. Every month. Someone chases families, checks who has paid and asks again for the card of whoever's payment failed.

Different sectors. Same pattern: a repetitive task nobody wants, done by someone because there's no other option.

That's where a product makes sense.

Don't make the chore prettier. Make it disappear

There's an easy trap here: building a nicer screen for the same tedious task.

It helps a bit. But the customer still has to remember, log in and do it.

What really changes someone's life is not having to think about it. The registration goes out on its own when the guest arrives. The fee is collected on its own every month without asking anyone for their card.

If your system already has the data (the booking, the card, the member), you're often one step away from doing the work for them.

And nobody cancels the tool that takes a problem off their plate.

What they want to show and what they dread

There's a distinction that helps me a lot.

What your customers want to show off (a beautiful website, an elegant booking flow) is easy to sell. It's visible, it's understood, it gets applause.

What they dread doing is harder to sell, because nobody asks for it with enthusiasm. But it usually matters more to them. Because it's what eats their Sunday.

When you talk to a customer, don't just ask what they'd like to have. Ask what they do every week that they can't stand. The second answer is worth more.

Why boring wins when you grow slowly

We don't have investors paying for experiments. Every feature has to earn its place.

And the boring ones earn it sooner. A customer who stops worrying about a chore has one less reason to look elsewhere. That's the kind of growth an unhurried company can afford: slow, but it sticks.

I used to think the product was what the customer wanted to show off.

Now I think it's often what the customer wants to stop doing.

P.S. If you ever meet someone who loves paperwork, introduce me. I have questions.