How to Find a Startup Idea

medium.com

5 points·memn0nis··5 comments

For me, they are very unreliable and dangerous questions. Mostly asked by people who are wasting months to validate thoughts and seek the next imaginary unicorn, that doesn't exist yet and has no competition. :)

You immediately assume that you need to have more expertise and be 10x better than the competition. But the business building doesn't work like this, in most circumstances, you'll start from something small, and then become an expert in it. Placing research and business decisions in the hands of customers who mostly say "no, we don't need this..." is just unreliable. Sometimes most stupid and simple ideas can change everything, which was proven many times.

Don't waste time and focus on building actual products, then validate, pivot, validate, pivot, validate, stay, earn millions, acquire more companies, get more money, build some more companies, finish with an empire... But try to avoid Walter White's fate. ;)

Definitely fair points.. what I was trying to get at is exactly your last point. The only way to know whether people want what you're building is to actually see if they're willing to pay for it. I think the biggest thing we are trying to avoid is building a product without knowing whether customers actually want it

My point was: Don't do customer research and build around your problems. You'll find clients in the same position willing to pay for it.

Pick your best promising idea, build it, start it, and see what's falling. Startups pivot multiple times before they settle, don't be scared of that.

Understood. We've been emphasizing customer research to prevent time spent building the wrong thing. This talk explains more about the method we are following: https://startupclass.samaltman.com/courses/lec16/

Easy, see what google/ms is doing, and do the same.

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