How to Get Startup Ideas, Jared Friedman

The first, most common mistake is believing that you need an amazing idea to get started.

When Google started, it was, like, the 20th search engine. And when Facebook started, it was, like, the 20th social network. What made them successful wasn’t a brilliant initial idea. It was a good enough initial idea, combined with great execution.

The next mistake is exactly the opposite: jumping into the first idea that comes to mind, without really stopping to think critically about whether it’s a good idea at all.

Startup ideas morph over time. Take Airbnb, for example. Airbnb was initially literally a website for renting air beds at other people’s houses. It morphed over time into all vacation rentals. So the thing you want to do is to pick a good starting point.

The third mistake is to start with a solution instead of a problem. We see this so commonly at YC that we have a term for it. It’s called a “Solution In Search of a Problem,” or a SISP.

The last mistake is believing that startup ideas are hard to find. Actually, they’re easy to find, because there are many, many real problems left in the world.

Let’s talk about evaluating startup ideas.

The first criteria is how big is this idea? Founder/market fit. The next criteria is how sure are you that you’re solving a big problem? And finally, do you have a new, important insight into this idea?

Here are some other signs to look for that your idea is probably a good one. You’re making something you personally want to have.

Another sign is that this only recently became possible.

My last topic about evaluating startup ideas is to talk about filters. Filters are bad reasons to reject startup ideas.

The first is rejecting ideas that seem hard to get started.

The second filter is ideas that are in a boring space.

The third one is ideas that seem too ambitious.

The last one is that founders instinctively shy away from spaces where there are existing competitors.

Now the part that you’re probably waiting for, how to generate startup ideas.

The best way to have startup ideas is to notice them organically. There are great startup ideas all around you, and when you have a prepared mind, you see them everywhere.

So first, I want to talk about how to have startup ideas organically.

If you’re planning to start a startup way in the future, it’s very helpful to become an expert on something valuable, and the best way is probably to get a job at the forefront of some field. If you’re working at the forefront of some field, really any field, you’ll see good startup ideas before other people. It’s particularly helpful to go work at an existing startup.

Okay, I’m gonna walk through seven recipes for explicitly generating startup ideas.

This first recipe is the best one. You start with what your team is especially good at, and think of ideas that you would have an unfair advantage in executing. Let’s walk through some examples of how to do this. The first thing I do is I go through every company you’ve ever worked at. Internships are fine. And for each one, I’d ask yourself what are things you learned there that other people don’t know? Then, ask yourself, for each company, what seemed broken? What parts of company life were clumsy?

Second recipe, think of things you wish someone else would build for you.

Third recipe. What would you be excited to work on for 10 years, even if it didn’t succeed? What things are you really passionate about? I have seen this recipe lead founders astray, so I wanted to warn you about it. It can lead founders astray by encouraging them to work on something that they’re very passionate about, but that does not have a clear path to being a big business.

Number four, look for things that have changed in the world recently, and think of ideas that are now possible because of this change. For example, a new technology, a new developer platform, a new regulation, a new problem in the world. What are waves that you could ride?

Number five, find companies that have been successful recently, and look for new variants of them. This is a very common way that founders look for ideas, but unfortunately, it’s not necessarily the best one. Ideas that are generated this way often take a form like “Uber for X,” or “Airbnb for Y.” These ideas are very often solutions in search of problems, so if you come up with an idea this way, you should be default skeptical, and you should think really hard about whether it is actually solving a problem.

Number six, you can also crowdsource coming up with an idea by talking to people you know, and asking them for problems they want solved. This is especially interesting to do with people who have particular areas of expertise, like people who work in an interesting industry, for example. The downside with this recipe is that most people are bad at seeing startup ideas. That’s why this strategy seems to work particularly well if the people you ask are other startup founders. They already know how to notice good startup ideas.

And, number seven. Look for industries that seem broken. Any industry that seems broken is probably ripe for disruption. The downside of this recipe is it will often take you to ideas that have poor founder/market fit. It’s not likely to work well if you don’t know anything about the industry you’re hoping to disrupt.