How do you come up with your ideas for startups? • Hacker News Board

Re: How do you come up with your ideas for startups?

#11

Post by waleedka » Sun, Apr 15, 2007, 11:21 AM UTC

Check this excellent book by Kevin O'Connor, the founder of DoubleClick. He explains his own process for finding ideas and the mistakes that a lot of people do when choosing their own ideas. It's an eye opener.

The Map of Innovation: Creating Something Out of Nothing. http://www.amazon.com/Map-Innovation-Creating-Something-Nothing/dp/1400048311

Re: How do you come up with your ideas for startups?

#12

Post by Wintermute » Sun, Apr 15, 2007, 4:30 PM UTC

You've probably already done this, but if not definitely take a look at the PG essay. Pretty solid stuff there. http://www.paulgraham.com/ideas.html

Re: How do you come up with your ideas for startups?

#13

Post by curio » Sun, Apr 15, 2007, 7:12 PM UTC

pg wrote: post #5

Notice things that seem broken-- things that should be possible, but aren't (yet).

One of the best sources for me has been from contract work. For example, if someone is annoyed enough with the software they are currently using to pay me 10 grand to replace it, then there is a good chance that there is a market opportunity there.

Re: How do you come up with your ideas for startups?

#14

Post by imperator » Sun, Apr 15, 2007, 9:07 PM UTC

I have lots of ideas. Then I choose the ones that keep coming up as trends, or correlate with things my friends say.

I would say about ninety nine percent of my ideas are really bad or crazy sounding. When I look back at my notebooks, most of my ideas are juvenile, ill-concieved, and smack of mental illness. But there are always a few golden ideas glinting amongst them.

I warn people against concentrating on good ideas because that prevents them from practicing the raw creation of ideas. Good ideas will be revealed as your collection of raw ideas interacts with the world.

Re: How do you come up with your ideas for startups?

#15

Post by MEHOM » Sun, Apr 15, 2007, 11:10 PM UTC

Has anyone ever heard of the "strategy by guidelines" and the "Tangible Vision" approach? Start by understanding what one wants in terms of the outcome and then develop a set of guidelines based on achieving the outcomes. Uses a mindmap software to draw out the scheme. Slowly start making connections between the outcome and the approach of completing the outcome (milestone by milestone). Without any project mgmt strategy, most developers are just guessing on their objectives and the approach.