Writers and artists struggle to find useful plant references
Writers looking for plants native to a historical setting and artists seeking drawing references have trouble finding relevant lists and good photos. Existing plant databases can miss common-name searches or lack images, while people who take their own photos may still need a way to arrange multiple views. A focused reference workspace could bring discovery and image organization together, though the signals do not establish how large the audience is.
For writers, botanical artists, and plant enthusiasts. Mentioned from May 2024 to Jan 2026 on Bluesky, Hacker News and Stack Exchange.
4 different people described this problem in 4 separate discussions.
- Indie fit
- 4.0/10
- Pain
- 4.0/10
- Frequency
- 5.8/10
- Willingness to pay
- 0.0/10
- Momentum
- 5.0/10
- Who pays
- Professionals
- Competition
- Medium
- Build difficulty
- Medium
What people said
Quoted word for word. Follow a link to read the whole discussion.
Many pictures missing. Search is not great, especially for non scientific names of plants. Like "frogfruit" doesn't find anything. Other than that it's great!!
netrap on Hacker NewsMay 2024I want to learn to do art better (especially plants bc of secret (not so secret) project), so I decided to try and draw my favourite plant (silverweed), but I can't find a good reference picture aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
Build brief
See what to build and who will buy it
- 2 product ideas with the smallest useful version and pricing
- 4 places to find your first customers
- 2 more quotes from people who have this problem
- Current workarounds, existing solutions and risks