Where do you find products at their early stage?

[Shameless plug.] Funny, I'm in the opposite shoe, just released a product after a decade+ of work but it somehow didn't show up in the Show HN section. This won't answer your question but it is definitely 1 product that matches your criteria. Maybe there could be a monthly Early HN thread if others post here too? :)

Boomla - a web development platform which I call a Website OS https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21292726

ProductHunt and IndieHackers.

I visit them basically every day. Not to be an early adopter but to get inspiration. ProductHunt is good for checking how random business/app/website ideas are received. IndieHackers is more of a motivational tool because people share their struggles and wins. Both are are great for new product discovery as makers use them as announcement platforms.

I am reading tech news extensively on different platforms. HN is also a great source. I assume, you would like to profit being ahead of the flock. The trick, though, is to make a judgement of what will come out as a disruption. Bitcoin, before it was cool, was just a crypt currency. Something new, and something that except for few, no one understood. And yet, it became what it is today. Some were lucky because they just decided to try it, others because they made a sound judgement based on experience... and yet some made a big mistake.

.. more relevant super lists related to finding these products via Reddit and other websites ..

https://github.com/mmccaff/PlacesToPostYourStartup https://www.indiehackers.com/forum/subreddits-for-indie-hack...

Let's say you spotted an early stage start up... If it was not IPO, you wouldn't be able to invest in it easily.

You would still have to reach out to the founders and offer something. Is this what you are trying to do? In this case, how would you approach it?

PS: I also read highscalability.com - the dude usually talks about cool new products and stuff they are making. It's usually heavy tech related but always interesting reads.

There is another sneaky but time consuming way to find hidden clues.

You need scrape every new-registered domains, extension with .io or filter with keywords, then manually check each newly registered domains, typically, you can find some very new projects or products.

Btw, except ProductHunt and IndieHacker Marshallbananas mentioned, another website that list popular small business ideas, but I forgot its name, damn it.

It sounds like the other comments are mostly talking about a mainstream source to learn about pre-mainstream products. Aren’t those at odds with each other? If these new products could be found easily then everyone would be using them and it would be too late to take advantage of first mover principles.

I’m not trying to be snarky but if this was easy then what would VCs need to do?

Scrape alexa/app rankings daily, and keep track of those that have gotten a huge spike in interest that week.

Hmm, while not for path breaking tech like the above, I go to product hunt or indie hackers to go checkout new products and become an early adopter.

I found this site recently http://www.profithunt.co/

1. Talent attracts talent. You should be somewhere where ideas can flourish.

2. You need to be in a group where people encourage crazy ideas.

HN and the Bay Area have a lot of 1 but not 2. I guess you also have to be somewhere where people don't take themselves too seriously.

A lot of them also seem like crazy fun ideas at first, and often you hear people saying they're just sticking around for the community. You could feel it gain momentum, people get excited and energetic.