I'm sure this post is well intended, but it just pushes new founders into obvious, crowded categories like virtual conference and remote work SaaS. To find good ideas, founders need to go a lot deeper than asking themselves "what is different about the world today?"
Idea Generation
111–120 of 146 posts
Re: Idea Generation
#112> (By the way, it’s useful to get good at differentiating between real trends and fake trends. A key differentiator is if the new platform is used a lot by a small number of people, or used a little by a lot of people.) As a one-time founder, I feel embarrassed to have to ask this; but in the spirit of no-stupid-question and also that there's gotta be someone else wondering the same -- which one is the real trend and…
Nah, I think you're asking a good question! I think your interpretation is correct - a good sign for a platform is if it has a small base of passionate users who love the product. For some more context, the How to Start a Startup course is pretty good -- here is the lecture I think is most relevant: http://startupclass.samaltman.com/courses/lec06/ Any statement like this isn't going to apply in all cases, and you bri…
I see a lot of statements like this (also here in the comments), but is there actual any evidence behind those? Any research results, which has been replicated?
If yes, it would be nice to see it together with such statements, to back them, because I have the feeling most of this is just anecdotical or ideas introduced by some kind of start-up gurus...
Re: Idea Generation
#113> (By the way, it’s useful to get good at differentiating between real trends and fake trends. A key differentiator is if the new platform is used a lot by a small number of people, or used a little by a lot of people.) As a one-time founder, I feel embarrassed to have to ask this; but in the spirit of no-stupid-question and also that there's gotta be someone else wondering the same -- which one is the real trend and…
I think usage pattern is too idea-dependent to be a key metric, returning customers vs impulse buyers are both valid targets to aim at and often are just phases within a product lifecycle, like impulse buyer are those pushing the initial growth, returning customer those that sustain it.
I think a good idea moves on two different coordinates around usage patterns (actually more, but two in the context of users):
a) the idea has some value before the network effect
b) the idea has value even for those users that don't contribute any data
and yeah that rules out most low hanging fruit social network, but yeah, social network aren't about ideas, are about how much marketing you can push behind them anyway.
Re: Idea Generation
#114> (By the way, it’s useful to get good at differentiating between real trends and fake trends. A key differentiator is if the new platform is used a lot by a small number of people, or used a little by a lot of people.) As a one-time founder, I feel embarrassed to have to ask this; but in the spirit of no-stupid-question and also that there's gotta be someone else wondering the same -- which one is the real trend and…
> It's better to have 100 users love you than 1 million kinda like you. The true seed of scale is love, and you can't buy it, hack it, or game it. A product that is deeply loved is one that can scale Interview with Reid Hoffman, founder of LinkedIn, Altman goes more into his reasoning [0] https://mastersofscale.com/sam-altman-why-customer-love-is-a...
Linkedin is literally used a little by a lot of people.
Re: Idea Generation
#115The best ideas are fragile; most people don’t even start talking about them at all because they sound silly.
I hear this expressed quite a lot and there's certainly some truth here. I think it can be quite misleading though.
Many good ideas also just sound like pretty good ideas and turn out to be great businesses. Not every idea has to be completely crazy sounding. Perhaps this is even more true in B2B software / boring industries.
VCs and Accelerators are incentivised to encourage the craziest "moonshots" because that's how they make money. If you're just looking to get rich selling software you don't need to go to mars.
Re: Idea Generation
#116Am I the only one with a list of over 1000 ideas that would all become billion dollar companies if I just had the time to do them all?
Nope. These idea generation posts don’t make any sense to me - I have too many ideas, most of which would at least be successful small businesses if I put a couple years into them. The difficulty is in focusing on one, to the exclusion of others.
Re: Idea Generation
#117Earlier quoted context omitted.
> It's better to have 100 users love you than 1 million kinda like you. The true seed of scale is love, and you can't buy it, hack it, or game it. A product that is deeply loved is one that can scale Interview with Reid Hoffman, founder of LinkedIn, Altman goes more into his reasoning [0] https://mastersofscale.com/sam-altman-why-customer-love-is-a...
Linkedin is literally used a little by a lot of people.
At first I thought this was the perfect counter-example.
Maybe LinkedIn works because it’s used a lot by the small group that matters and pays – recruiters! I imagine they’re on LinkedIn all day long.
Re: Idea Generation
#118> (By the way, it’s useful to get good at differentiating between real trends and fake trends. A key differentiator is if the new platform is used a lot by a small number of people, or used a little by a lot of people.) As a one-time founder, I feel embarrassed to have to ask this; but in the spirit of no-stupid-question and also that there's gotta be someone else wondering the same -- which one is the real trend and…
"Dapps were used a lot by a small number of people as of a few years ago (think the cryptokitties trend)," Genuine question, were they? I've yet to see any data on the FREQUENCY of usage of these dApps. There was certainly a lot of buzz.
Yes, CryptoKitties was so popular that it brought the whole Ethereum network to its knees. It was very short-lived however.
Re: Idea Generation
#119Earlier quoted context omitted.
From a VC's point of view, for early startups, only pre-chasm matters. If many don't cross, well, it's a numbers game.
Oftentimes the VC cash is needed to actually cross the chasm. One of the difference between early and mainstream adopter populations is that a lot more product polish, and oftentimes explicit sales or advertising outreach, is needed to please the mainstream audience. That all costs money. I wouldn't say that only pre-chasm matters, though. VCs usually refuse to invest in startups that have zero chance of crossing the…
There's a ton of D&D apps out there. Why do you need VC funding to make a D&D app anyways? Making $137M on a single app (using your numbers) sounds amazing for an indie dev.
Re: Idea Generation
#120Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's two competing lenses of thought that bookend your struggle: On one hand, Sam's point is basically described by Paul Graham's essay on "Narrow and Deep" ideas [1]. You want an idea to have a few passionate users rather than lots of lukewarm users, because there's an activation energy to building a habit and if you're only lukewarm you're not going to get over it. As PG put it, "Sum that reaction over a whole p…
>grocery delivery I think the USA implementation is poor not the idea is bad. Here Finland K-ryhmä[1] did really nailed implementation and it is like 10x better than going to the supermarket. My mom and aunt both in their 70 started using this separately and both are saying they are not going to back in supermarkets after covid19. [1] https://www.k-ruoka.fi/kauppa
That's interesting - I live right next to a K-Market and I'm not in a risk demographic so not had the need, but when I moved from the UK to Finland some 10 years ago one thing I missed was that the UK supermarkets at the time had excellent online delivery systems (they're buckling under the strain of the current crisis due to surge in demand, but back then they worked well enough). Finland didn't seem to have anything equivalent until recently, which I thought was more due to geography, population density and other factors that just didn't make it economical for the K and S chains.