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How to get new ideas

paulgraham.com

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Re: How to get new ideas

#151

Post by tchaffee »

somethingreen wrote: post #115
3dsnano wrote: post #40

i think new ideas come from being naive and possessing the "no-mind" or a childlike sense of wonder. the older i get, the less plastic my brain is and the more depression and other issues start to seep in, get in the way, overcomplicate shit. to be completely free, uninhibited, released from guilt and predjudice. to just think, play, laugh, fart, and yawn. boring days spent looking out the window wondering how crows…

Name 3 things you own or use that were invented (even at conceptual level) by a child.

The many fictional worlds of my nephew. I use them for entertainment and they are an excellent fit.

Re: How to get new ideas

#152

Post by jarrenae »

I feel I can speak to this pretty well, over the past year I've launched 130+ projects as part of https://ae.studio/same-day-skunkworks and I've come up with ~250+ ideas.

Similar to "look for anomalies" my general rule of thumb is to solve some sort of problem, even if it's rather small.

So for example:

1. I pick a topic/product. Let's say: Gmail

2. I look for things that I'd like to be able to do, wish I could do, or consider frustrations I've experienced in the past.

- I want to review how many emails I get a day on average, where are my "inbox metrics"?

- I want to see threaded messages more clearly, why is the design so opposite a normal chat message?

- I want to create emails faster, why do I have such an elaborate editor and format for something that I typically want to use informally?

3. I consider ways to solve said problems

- Where are my "inbox metrics"? - Chrome extension to show average emails per day, and graph on a timeline which types of emails I get on certain days. Huge personal data opportunity here.

- I want to see threaded messages more clearly - An app that connects to my gmail that intelligently restructures my emails to make them appear like chat messages. It handles all the noise, I just message as I would in any instant messenger.

- I want to create emails faster - predictive text templates, quick starters, GPT powered replies, change the "bulky editor" out for a simple text box + clever replies.

4. I then research if there are existing solutions to said problems, and if there are, I either ignore and move on, or consider ways that I could quickly one up their product to make mine the better product in the marketplace.

For my specific use-case, I'm trying to build a product per day, so I'll look for speedy ways to solve the problem that I've selected in a novel and agency increasing way. But I think this is a great structure for anyone looking to build a startup or a small side hustle.

Re: How to get new ideas

#153

Post by samsquire »

I think that finding gaps as Paul Graham says is a good approach to finding ideas.

My approach to finding ideas is to think, write and use words I like to explore creatively and join arbitrary ideas together. Writing and talking IS thinking itself!

I even journal all my ideas in the open on GitHub! I share all my ideas with everyone, including startup ideas. Links are on my profile. I LOVE SHARING IDEAS.

I enjoy reading people's problems to encounter inspiration for problem solving. I would read Slashdot when growing up to learn about computer issues people were solving.

Some words I enjoy are "mesh", "parallel", "multiplex", "multi", "schedule", "marketplace", "tree", "additive", "auto", "query", "traversal", "graph".

Re: How to get new ideas

#154

Post by [deleted] »

JackFr wrote: post #76
gizmo wrote: post #42

Most things are strange, missing, broken for mundane reasons that you can't do much about. The space of new ideas is huge, but almost all new ideas are bad. One strategy I really like is to think of technologies you couldn't build 5 years ago but are just barely possible today. That's where yesterday's bad ideas become today's good ideas. For example, laptops and phones produced 20 years of incremental improvements i…

"With a big enough engine even a brick will fly." - famous quote about the F-4, which captures that much of early airplane development was engine development rather than aeronautics. It's no coincidence that Glenn Curtiss got his start in motorcycles before moving onto aircraft. I think to some extent we are seeing the same thing with the latest AI models, where if you just throw enough parameters and GPU's at a prob…

[deleted]

Re: How to get new ideas

#156

Post by specialist »

And I'm over here trying turn off my endless torrent of new ideas, to better focus on the work in front of me.

During the apocalyse, it got really bad. Probably due to isolation and so I didn't have my usual inhibitors. ("Being polite company" turn upkeep.)

--

The one strategy I have "to let it go" for my idea factory is to journal. Write however much of the notion down in notebooks that emotionally allows me to mentally stop chewing on it. Sometimes just a one liner. Sometimes long white papers.

Re: How to get new ideas

#159

Post by iamwil »

zachthewf wrote: post #135
userabchn wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We like to believe that the problem is just "our own adult psychosis", but I spend my days around many people over quite a range of ages (including elderly) and it is very obvious to me that cognitive abilities decline in the way shown in the charts you have probably seen (or, it feels to me, even more dramatically) and that it is apparent at an earlier age that we would like to think. Old people lose the ability to…

The example from University is not a good one. There are bright and not-so-bright young people too, but older people typically have fewer misgivings about asking "dumb" questions that may have obvious answers.

Also, I think older people have seen more exceptions through experience, and know that sometimes, "dumb" questions don't have obvious answers.

Re: How to get new ideas

#160

Post by rileymat2 »

hristov wrote: post #110
rileymat2 wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is an interesting concept in itself, if the idea is sound, why does the originator matter?

Usually if one wants to take advice, one should consider the reliability of the source of advice as a factor.

Most certainly we do, but I find the question interesting, a focus on advice verifiability helps both cases.
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