On How to Get Startup Ideas
Paul Graham (@paulg) wrote on How to Get Startup Ideas. Here is what I think.
The very best startup ideas tend to have three things in common: they’re something the founders themselves want, that they themselves can build, and that few others realize are worth doing.
Startup ideas arise from founders building something they want.
How do you tell whether there’s a path out of an idea? How do you tell whether something is the germ of a giant company, or just a niche product? Often you can’t.
You cannot foresee if an idea is tapping into a larger market.
The most important thing to understand about paths out of the initial idea is the meta-fact that these are hard to see.
The path to developing a good idea are hard to recognize.
If you’re at the leading edge of a field that’s changing fast, when you have a hunch that something is worth doing, you’re more likely to be right.
If you’re on the leading edge of any field, you should rely on your hunches to know what’s a good idea.
Being at the leading edge of a field doesn’t mean you have to be one of the people pushing it forward.
If you want to be on the leading edge of any field, you do not need to be pushing the field forward. As a user of the technology, you can be at the leading edge .
Live in the future, then build what’s missing.
You need to live on the edge of technology, then build what’s missing.
Once you’re living in the future in some respect, the way to notice startup ideas is to look for things that seem to be missing… Most things that are missing will take some time to see.
In order to recognize ideas, you must be patient to see what is missing around yourself.
You can be sure people are going to build things in the next few years that will make you think “What did I do before x?”
You can find good startup ideas by asking yourself: “what did I do before X?”
But if you’re looking for startup ideas you can sacrifice some of the efficiency of taking the status quo for granted and start to question things.
You can find startup ideas by questioning the status quo.
Pay particular attention to things that chafe you… When something annoys you, it could be because you’re living in the future.
You can find startup ideas by paying attention to what annoys you.
Since what you need to do here is loosen up your own mind, it may be best not to make too much of a direct frontal attack on the problem — i.e. to sit down and try to think of ideas. The best plan may be just to keep a background process running, looking for things that seem to be missing.
You do not need an idea journal. The better approach to find ideas is to look for things that are missing in this world.
A good way to trick yourself into noticing ideas is to work on projects that seem like they’d be cool.
If you continue to work on cool projects, you will notice novel startup ideas.
Live in the future and build what seems interesting.
You need to live on the edge of technology and follow your interests.
But don’t feel like you have to build things that will become startups. That’s premature optimization.
At Produvia, we develop projects to solve our own problems.
Because a good idea should seem obvious, when you have one you’ll tend to feel that you’re late. Don’t let that deter you. Worrying that you’re late is one of the signs of a good idea.
If you notice that you are worrying about the “lateness” of your idea, then it’s a sign of a good idea.
Ten minutes of searching the web will usually settle the question. Even if you find someone else working on the same thing, you’re probably not too late. It’s exceptionally rare for startups to be killed by competitors — so rare that you can almost discount the possibility.
If you face competition, it is unlikely that you will be killed by your competitors.
A crowded market is actually a good sign, because it means both that there’s demand and that none of the existing solutions are good enough.
Crowded markets are usually a sign of supply and demand.
One good trick is to ask yourself whether in your previous job you ever found yourself saying “Why doesn’t someone make x? If someone made x we’d buy it in a second.” If you can think of any x people said that about, you probably have an idea. You know there’s demand, and people don’t say that about things that are impossible to build.
Asking yourself “why doesn’t someone make X?” is a great way to find ideas worth the pursuit.
The next best thing to an unmet need of your own is an unmet need of someone else. Try talking to everyone you can about the gaps they find in the world. What’s missing? What would they like to do that they can’t? What’s tedious or annoying, particularly in their work? Let the conversation get general; don’t be trying too hard to find startup ideas. You’re just looking for something to spark a thought.
When meeting people, you can talk about what gaps they find in the world. Ask them: What’s missing in your life? What would you like to do that you can’t? What’s tedious or annoying, particularly in your work?
When you find an unmet need that isn’t your own, it may be somewhat blurry at first. The person who needs something may not know exactly what they need. In that case I often recommend that founders act like consultants — that they do what they’d do if they’d been retained to solve the problems of this one user. People’s problems are similar enough that nearly all the code you write this way will be reusable, and whatever isn’t will be a small price to start out certain that you’ve reached the bottom of the well.
One way to find unmet needs is to act like a consultant who is trying to solve problems.
If you’re at the leading edge of some rapidly changing field, you don’t have to look for waves; you are the wave.
At Produvia, we are the AI wave.
The best approach is more indirect: if you have the right sort of background, good startup ideas will seem obvious to you.
If you have the right background, the best startup ideas will seem obvious to you.
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.
You must be patient and recognize that noticing your interests takes time. Don’t notice ideas, notice what interests you.
