I've always just looked on highdeas for these?
(linky) http://highdeas.com/ Also Halfbakery - http://www.halfbakery.com/
Also http://www.oneeyedeer.com/issues
This lets people post about their issues, see if you can solve them :-)
How to find start-up ideas
31–35 of 35 posts
Re: How to find start-up ideas
#32As soon as I started working on my startup, I started noticing lots of other problems in the world, which I wish someone would fix. At least some of these could turn into good business ideas too. So, if you are romanticising about starting a startup but don't have an idea, do this: forget about ideas and doing something new. Just pick up an existing business and try to clone it. Along the way, you will find your idea…
I agree. This is why outsourcing manufacturing to other parts of the world is a bad idea. Innovation occurs where the manufacturing takes place. Take batteries for example. Companies in the US thought the process was simple and there was nothing to gain from keeping the manufacturing in the US. Well, they outsourced it to other countries in order to cut costs and look what happened. Lithium Ion batteries came about.
On the same note, I have found that starting sentences out loud before I finish the complete sentence in my head yields much more content, wit, and many times even better points. (seriously, but I'm mainly forced to try this while talking to girls at the bar)
I have heard some musicians (mainly rappers) don't write down lyrics because the process of writing completely destroys the flow. Instead, they record themselves improvising, quickly realizing a better phrase should have been used, stopping, and improvising again. If they can't come up with a word or phrase to fit into the sentence, they make a sound that fits the flow and come back to it later.
In short, be involved with current material as closely as possible in order to create new material. I hope this makes sense
Re: How to find start-up ideas
#33Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm always surprised by people who can't think of an idea to work on. My problem is I start on one and then get distracted by the next one too soon. I've got a jar of post-its with ideas of varying strength.
Maybe these people don't count the silly ideas they get, which they have no way to solve, or would not actually produce money, or are impossible.
Fair point, but I suspect the "Need an idea"-types (to generalise) are looking for anything that might have a faint hope of success. If you have the judgement/sense to discount ideas for the reasons you listed, I doubt you're on HN begging for ideas.
Re: How to find start-up ideas
#34Earlier quoted context omitted.
Howdy Philip, maybe I can be of help. I find that ideas that really grab me can hit just about any time of day or night, but only if I'm open to them. When I'm idea light, it's because I discard ideas as low value without giving them a proper shake or playing with them (hashing out a design). My poor cofounder get's rained on by my ideas when they're flowing, At this point I'm pretty confident he auto forwards them t…
If you ever want to sound-off ideas against someone, get in touch. I wonder if people start auto-deleting mine too because I will think of something new most days of the week.
It's helpful to sound off ideas, because there's no guarantee we'll recognize our best. I wait till I really fall in love with an idea, as that will help drive me to implement it (I'm a pretty slow hacker).
Sure hit me up with ideas anytime at messel at gmail dot com. I'm Mark
Re: How to find start-up ideas
#35wow