How To Find An Idea For A New Startup

I, as someone that is often overloaded with ideas but subpar when it comes to executing, need to do a better job networking.

Or, you know, find a business guy as a partner. People from investment banking, consulting, venture capital, and private equity backgrounds have years of experience dealing with $50M - $10B companies and know markets (hey, look, the first thing VCs look at when making investment decisions) and their soft spots intimately. They also tend to have cash that can pay for an apartment and food. They're hybrid co-founders/angels.

Ask people who have money and problems what their problems are. Solve their problems. Charge money for it.

Or, failing that, you could probably create a Web 2.0 Twitter-integrated mashup of social network aggregators.

Or, alternatively, let yourself be found. Some of those people are just as entrepreneurial as you are, and desperate to find a competent hacker to work with. You are probably already friends with some such people. Ask around.

The guy quoted in the article, who "wants to start u startup" has put it all wrong and is doing it for all the wrong reasons.

You don't get to "start a startup" -- startup is essentially a means and not an end; it is actually one possible form how a business could develop.

Generally, startups are formed from two motivations: a) you want to start a business (i.e. to work on your own) and b) you want to capitalize on a technology. In the former case there is a ton of possible ways to start a business, and some are listed in the linked article: you can become a consultant, you can set up a simple Web site etc. The same is true for the latter: instead of founding a company and looking for funding, you can sell the technology to another company, or simply license it etc.

I think that the quoted guy was attracted to the notion of a startup by the recent hype going on, and that he would like all the attention and "lifestyle" (or at least how he sees it), and is not really interested in building a valid business or technology.