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In my first month as an indie developer, I thought demand was something you brainstorm. I overthought everything, analyzed about 10 ideas, and rejected them all.
Eventually I realized: demand isn't invented — it's discovered through building projects and using products.
The world is full of "gaps." Users get stuck, can't solve their problem — that's demand.
I organized the gaps I've observed into 3 layers and 10 types. Let's take a look.
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Layer 1: Feature Gaps
1. Scenario Gap
Generic tools cover 80% of use cases, but the remaining 20% of vertical scenarios are neglected.
Photoshop can compress images, but the workflow is clunky. Frontend developers processing dozens of images daily can't stand it. TinyPNG does just one thing, in seconds. Cut the scenario small enough, go deep enough, and that's enough.
Finding scenario gaps is straightforward: open a generic tool, browse its templates or feature categories, think about the specific user group you know best (ideally yourself), and look for vertical scenarios that are clearly half-baked. The opportunity might be right there.
2. Technical Gap
Users have needs, but meeting them requires technical skills that regular people can't cross. Whoever lowers that barrier wins.
Before AI, building a website required coding knowledge. Now with tools like Claude Code, the barrier to writing code is dropping fast. Technical gaps have always existed — AI is just making them cheaper to fill.
Here's another example: in 2023, I saw a Gen-Z programmer and his friend — just 2 people — make over 400K RMB in 6 months building a Spotify registration tool. Why could they earn that? Because registration required specific technical know-how with network configurations — not just having a VPN. They could do it, others couldn't. That's a technical gap.
3. Experience Gap
The feature exists, but using it is painful — high learning curve, tedious workflow, cluttered interface, confusing error messages.
Photoshop has everything, but non-designers who want to create graphics struggle. That's why tools like Canva exist — anyone can pick them up instantly.
Traditional note-taking apps: full of ads, dated UI, inflexible. Notion: beautiful, flexible (AI-assisted, databases, kanban boards) — exploded in popularity.
Layer 2: Information Gaps
4. Information Gap
Some people know something, others don't. Information isn't flowing — that's the gap.
There are tons of great dev tools and AI products abroad, but many domestic users don't even know they exist, or know but can't access them.
So what emerged? API relay services that bridge foreign APIs to domestic users.
5. Information Depth Gap
Information exists, but it's shallow. The internet is flooded with "What" content. Content that explains "Why" and "How" is rare.
You see articles like "So-and-so makes 100K/month doing X." You read it, think "wow, impressive," close the tab, and do nothing. Because the content stopped at What — it never reached Why, and certainly didn't tell you "here's how you can apply this."
Content depth has roughly 3 layers: What → How → Why. The deeper you go, the scarcer and more valuable it gets. Most content stays in the first two layers. That's the depth gap.
6. Systematization Gap
Fragmented knowledge is everywhere, but very few people connect the pieces into a complete system.
Imagine a course with 100 articles, each covering a standalone case. After reading everything, users say "I learned a lot" but don't know where to start or how to apply it. Systematic content has structure, progression, and closure — users can take action immediately after learning. Creating scattered content is easy; building a system is hard. That's why systematic content is scarce and can command higher prices.
Before indie dev, my content output was random. After starting, I began structuring my posts with frameworks and progression. Value determines price — if you lazily let AI generate everything, users will spot it immediately.
From a personal growth perspective, value isn't for show — it's primarily for expanding your own understanding. That's what truly matters. Fooling yourself is pointless.
7. Method Applicability Gap
The method itself is sound, but it doesn't work for everyone. Tips from bloggers might completely fail for beginners.
"Start from your own pain points to find demand" — this works for the 20% of people with abundant pain points. But the other 80% try for a few days, realize their problems are too small, and give up. These 80% are underserved. Designing actionable methods specifically for them fills the applicability gap.
After discovering this, I wrote posts like "Stop Looking for the Perfect Idea — Build 3 Bad Projects First" and "I Wrote a Prompt That Generates 10 Actionable Ideas in One Minute." Both directly address this problem, and they actually work.
I started out as one of those 80%, which is why I share as I practice. My posts about payment solutions and billing strategies have resonated well.
Layer 3: Business Gaps
8. Pricing Gap
Existing products have billing models that don't match user behavior.
Many design tools charge annual subscriptions, but some users only need them occasionally. $299/year is too expensive for them. Switch to $9.99/use, and conversion rates could multiply. Same feature, different pricing logic — opens up entirely different user segments.
9. Platform Gap
A product thrives on Platform A but is virtually absent on Platform B.
A Chrome extension is incredibly powerful but has no iOS version.
Notion was wildly popular internationally, but for a long time there was no comparable alternative in China. Platform gaps sometimes don't require inventing anything new — just "porting" to another platform.
10. Combination Gap
Each individual feature already has someone doing it, but combining two or more creates a gap.
Combination gaps aren't about building new features — they're about reassembling existing features along the user's actual workflow, usually spanning multiple tools. Many of these needs already exist in users' heads and are quite tedious — nobody has just done it all for them in one place.
Users don't lack tools. They lack a complete flow from start to finish. Whoever connects that chain captures the value.
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These 10 types of gaps aren't parallel — in reality, a single demand often involves several simultaneously.
Discover a vertical scenario (scenario gap) where the tool experience is poor (experience gap) and pricing is unreasonable (pricing gap) — three layers stacked together makes the demand rock-solid and gives you more confidence to build.
We're all figuring things out. These 10 gap types are an observation framework I've put together — not necessarily complete, but useful for finding direction.
Sharing it here in hopes it helps you too.