I've scored dozens of ideas before building my first profitable product. Most were terrible. I just couldn't see it at the time. What I needed wasn't more ideas. I needed a way to evaluate them honestly.
After building (and killing) multiple projects, many indie hackers develop a simple scoring system. It won't predict unicorns, but it will save you from wasting months on ideas that were never going to work for you specifically.
Why "Is This a Good Idea?" Is the Wrong Question
The typical advice is to validate ideas through customer interviews and landing page tests. That's useful, but it assumes you've already picked which idea to validate. When you have 15 ideas competing for attention, you need a faster filter.
- Will you still care about this problem in 6 months when progress is slow?
- Can you actually build this with your current skills and time?
- Do you have any advantage that random competitors don't?
A massive market means nothing if you hate the work or can't execute. You need to evaluate ideas against yourself, not just against the market.
The Three Scores That Help Founders Pick Projects
Every idea gets rated 1-5 on three dimensions. Takes five minutes. No spreadsheets required.
Joy: How Much Will You Enjoy This?
Joy is about how much you'll genuinely enjoy working on this idea. That enjoyment drives sustainable motivation. Building takes longer than you think, and the initial excitement always fades. Enjoying the actual work is what keeps you going when it gets hard.
- You've thought about this problem repeatedly without prompting
- You use existing solutions and they genuinely frustrate you
- The domain interests you beyond the business opportunity
- You'd feel proud telling people what you're working on
- You're only interested because it looks profitable
- You found the idea by searching trends, not experience
- The actual day-to-day work sounds tedious
- You'd feel embarrassed explaining it at a dinner party
Why it matters: Low-Joy projects get abandoned the moment motivation dips. High-Joy projects tap into your natural curiosity. You'll read about the space for fun, think about problems in the shower, and persist through setbacks because you actually care.
Ease: Can You Actually Pull This Off?
Ease isn't about whether the product is technically simple. It's about the match between what's required and what you specifically bring.
- You have direct experience building similar things
- You already know how to reach the target users
- A useful version can be built in weeks, not months
- You have existing assets you can reuse or leverage
- You'd need to learn significant new skills first
- The target market is unfamiliar with no way to reach them
- Even a basic version requires unfamiliar infrastructure
- You'd need to hire or partner to fill critical gaps
Opportunity: Will Anyone Actually Pay?
Opportunity is where traditional validation thinking applies. You can love building something and be great at it, but if no one's buying, you've got an expensive hobby.
- People are actively searching for solutions
- Competitors exist and appear to be making money
- You've heard this problem mentioned by multiple people
- The monetisation path is clear, not "figure it out later"
- You seem to be the only person with this problem
- No competitors exist (often a warning, not green light)
- Target users are famously unwilling to pay
- Monetisation requires massive scale to make sense
How the Scores Combine
The three scores get combined into a single weighted total (out of 100) that helps you compare ideas at a glance. The default weighting prioritises what matters most for business success:
Opportunity is the driver. Joy and Ease are modifiers. A high-joy, high-ease idea with no market is just an expensive hobby. Markets matter more than motivation when it comes to building a business.
But here's the thing: a fatal weakness in any dimension should make you pause. An idea with a 1 in any score is a red flag worth investigating.
Idea A might look appealing because two scores are maxed out. But that 1 in Opportunity tanks the total score. Meanwhile, Idea B's solid opportunity score (80% of max) lifts the whole calculation. The market-validated idea wins.
The default weights work for most builders. But if you prioritise differently (maybe you value joy more highly, or you're in a position where ease matters more), Pro users can adjust the weighting to match their personal philosophy.
Balance matters, but opportunity matters most. A well-rounded idea with market validation beats a passion project with no customers.
Putting It Into Practice
What the Scores Can't Tell You
This framework is a decision aid, not a decision maker. Use it to surface insights and start reflection, not to outsource your judgment to arithmetic.
- A lower-scoring idea aligns with skills you want to develop
- It opens doors to future opportunities you care about
- Your gut is telling you something the numbers aren't
If your highest scorer doesn't feel right, investigate why. The discomfort might reveal hidden objections worth addressing.
The Real Point
Most indie hackers fail not because they lack good ideas, but because they spend too long evaluating and not enough time building. The goal isn't perfect selection. It's fast, reasonably-good selection that lets you move forward.
Score your ideas. Pick the winner. Build it.
The clarity you're looking for comes from shipping, not from spreadsheets.