A Missed Opportunity: How I Shelved My Idea and Watched Someone Else Succeed

Hello everyone, I’m currently 17 years old. When I was 16 about 1 to 1.5 years ago I was trying to come up with a good startup idea. I spent a few days conducting market analysis, thinking about gaps in the market, and eventually, I came up with an idea that I believed had real potential. The idea was a mobile app. The core purpose of the app was to use artificial intelligence to estimate the average calorie content of food and drinks based on photos submitted by users (for some products, you could also use barcodes to find their calorie count). Note: I had the knowledge and skills to develop this app due to my long-standing interest in software development and sufficient technical expertise. After coming up with this idea, I continued researching the market and found that there were already several similar apps available. To be honest, this discovery dampened my motivation, so I decided to shelve the idea and focus on other small projects. Recently, while browsing Instagram, I came across an interview with a 17-year-old who had developed the exact app I decided not to make. It turns out they earned about $12 million from it. I did some research and found out that even Forbes had covered their success story. In short, don’t procrastinate.