Problems
- Don't think of startup ideas
- Look for problems, preferably problems you have yourself
- If you have that problem, it at least means it's a problem that someone has
Problems shaped like a well
- At first, there must be some users who really need your solution
- If the problem were something that lots of people urgently need and it's easy enough to solve in an MVP, then it probably already exists
- So make something that a small number of people want a large amount
"ask yourself.... Who wants this so much that they'll use it even when it's a crappy version one made by a two-person startup they've never heard of? If you can't answer that, the idea is probably bad."
Self
- Live at the forefront of some field (either as a creator or a user), then notice what's missing
"If you're not at the leading edge of some rapidly changing field, you can get to one. For example, anyone reasonably smart can probably get to an edge of programming (e.g. building mobile apps) in a year. Since a successful startup will consume at least 3-5 years of your life, a year's preparation would be a reasonable investment."
Noticing
- Just notice "what's missing?"
- Turn off other filters, especially "Could this be a big company?"
- To notice what's missing, stop taking the world for granted
- Start to question things
- Pay attention to the things that chafe you
- Just keep a background process running and noticing as you go about working on whatever you like
Competition
- A good idea should seem obvious to you
- When you have one you'll tend to feel that you're too late, but don't let that stop you
- It's rare for startups to be killed by competitors, so don't worry about that
- All that matters is if someone needs what you plan to make
- A crowded market means there's demand. Just have a thesis about what the others are overlooking in the problem.
Filters
- Most programmers should turn off two mental filters:
The schlep filter
- When you "prefer not to deal with tedious problems or get involved in messy ways with the real world"
- Everyone has this preference, so the only problems left are all messy
- Problems that you fear
- It's most important that you turn this filter off
The unsexy filter
- Problems that you despise (to me that's too strong a word)
Recipes
- Some people don't have the luxury of the above approach
- Here are some tricks to come up with startup ideas on demand, but they are less good
- Look in areas where you have some expertise
- Try to remember if you ever said "If someone made X we'd buy it in a second"
- Next best is learning about others' unmet needs
- A small market that the big players ignore
Organic
"It doesn't work well simply to try to think of startup ideas. If you do that, you get bad ones that sound dangerously plausible."
"...if you have the right sort of background, good startup ideas will seem obvious to you. But even then, not immediately. It takes time to come across situations where you notice something missing. And often these gaps won't seem to be ideas for companies, just things that would be interesting to build. Which is why it's good to have the time and the inclination to build things just because they're interesting."