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Your idea of exporting highlights from a Kobo e-reader to email falls into a category where several similar solutions exist, but none have truly captivated the market. With 3 similar products already identified, it's a moderately competitive space. The lack of comments (low engagement) on these existing products suggests that users aren't particularly excited or invested in the current offerings. There are no signals about whether people would use or pay for similar tools. This might be because existing solutions are 'good enough' or because they don't solve a critical pain point effectively. Before investing significant time and effort, it's essential to understand why current solutions haven't resonated with users.

Recommendations

1. Start by thoroughly researching existing Kobo highlight export solutions. Identify their shortcomings: Are they difficult to use? Do they lack specific formatting options? Do they fail to integrate with popular note-taking apps? Understanding these limitations will help you differentiate your solution.
2. Instead of directly competing, consider offering tools that enhance the capabilities of existing Kobo solutions or integrate with them seamlessly. This might involve creating plugins or extensions that provide advanced formatting, organization, or export options, thereby catering to power users without requiring a complete overhaul of their workflow.
3. Explore adjacent problems related to e-readers and knowledge management. Perhaps there's a need for better annotation tools, more efficient ways to organize and search highlights across multiple books, or automated systems for creating summaries from e-reader content. These areas might present more promising opportunities.
4. Given the 'Swamp' category designation, carefully weigh the potential return on investment. If, after thorough research, you can't identify a compelling differentiator or a clear underserved market, it might be wiser to allocate your resources to a different, more promising project. Consider this phase as doing a deep dive into understanding the problems, before implementing any solution, as you may come to the conclusion that this problem is not worth solving, or not solvable.

Questions

1. What specific unmet needs do Kobo users have regarding highlight management that are not adequately addressed by existing solutions?
2. Beyond simply exporting highlights to email, what unique value proposition can you offer to make your solution stand out and attract a dedicated user base?
3. How can you validate your assumptions about user needs and preferences without investing significant time and resources in building a complete product?