How do we ensure the upvotes on HN ? I posted this 3 days ago
You don’t ensure upvotes. Just luck. Getting your mates to upvote is against the rules, so best to just see what happens.
How to brainstorm great business ideas
41–50 of 88 posts
Re: How to brainstorm great business ideas
#42I don't agree with the author. Sometimes good ideas solve problems people didn't know they had.
I posit a problem you didn’t know you had is a problem the founder knew you had through some wisdom of the crowd or even just luck that their own itch is yours too.
Re: How to brainstorm great business ideas
#43I am a serial idea writer and I have to agree with the author. Ideas are inherently valuable, maybe not financially, but they're valuable to have and valuable to society to share. It makes me angry that people actually believe ideas are inherently worthless. Or that without any code or implementation they're worthless. It's a meme that needs to die. It's like having your cake and eating it too. Here's a free idea for…
I don't think you're wrong. Great ideas are extremely valuable. But I think the disconnect comes from the fact that it's very easy to mistake mediocre ideas for great ones. Most times when I hear someone's self-described great idea it seems impressive at first, but then fails to hold up to scrutiny. Among other reasons that an idea may not be as valuable as it appears: * It's not actually original. Even if not widesp…
> * "And then a miracle happens..." Some aspect of the idea assumes magic technology or dependencies that don't exist.
Except someone else managed to get funding for such a magic idea and you are pretending to work on a solution to it. Self driving cars, AI startups as an example.
Re: How to brainstorm great business ideas
#44I very much agree with this post in that analysis of the problem has to be the first step. There needs to be both a contextual and a granular appreciation of the problem. You get far too many founders looking for the most intense problem when that is just one facet of a problem. Christmas songs are a problem, painful, intense, etc. But it's only once a year, which would mean not very active users. As well as the Mom…
Smoothly done! I’m going to try your tool out. And thanks!
Re: How to brainstorm great business ideas
#45Fantastic post. Lots of weight on the problem discovery area which is the right move and engineers turned entrepreneurs skip this step a lot. I know I did. A book recommended by YC's Aaron Epstein is The Mom Test[0]. The first 50-60% of the book is dedicated to how to discover problems with end clients/users that are worth tackling. I have used the techniques personally and it's great to see what users say is a huge…
> A book recommended by YC's Aaron Epstein is The Mom Test[0]. The first 50-60% of the book is dedicated to how to discover problems with end clients/users that are worth tackling.
I can't recommend this book enough. It lists every single mistake I ever made and every lesson I learned in doing so.
The only problem is that I discovered the book after making those mistakes and learning all those lessons.
Of course, following the advice in the book won't guarantee a successful business. But I'm 99% sure that NOT following it is a sure-fire recipe for failure.
Re: How to brainstorm great business ideas
#46I very much agree with this post in that analysis of the problem has to be the first step. There needs to be both a contextual and a granular appreciation of the problem. You get far too many founders looking for the most intense problem when that is just one facet of a problem. Christmas songs are a problem, painful, intense, etc. But it's only once a year, which would mean not very active users. As well as the Mom…
Smoothly done! I’m going to try your tool out. And thanks!
Hello QuickThrower2. Thank you for your reply. As for downloading it, brilliant, I hope it helps you. If you have any questions, comments, feedback, etc. Please do let me know. Cheers, Ace.
Re: How to brainstorm great business ideas
#47Fantastic post. Lots of weight on the problem discovery area which is the right move and engineers turned entrepreneurs skip this step a lot. I know I did. A book recommended by YC's Aaron Epstein is The Mom Test[0]. The first 50-60% of the book is dedicated to how to discover problems with end clients/users that are worth tackling. I have used the techniques personally and it's great to see what users say is a huge…
This book is incredibly helpful - I just wish they'd do a follow up book around how you interview users on your product once it exists. I guess the same principle applies "tell me about a new feature you want for our product... Did you actually try to find a workaround? No" *X probably isn't a feature we should prioritize top then I'd love to see more examples of ways to get good existing product feedback.
I found out about the Kano method about a year ago and have been using it professionally since (when appropriate).
It's a great way of discovering customer attitudes towards product features.
Forgive the plug, but I liked Kano so much that I wrote a free tool to create, conduct and analyze Kano surveys at https://kanochart.com
Re: How to brainstorm great business ideas
#48There is an interesting bias going on here. I'm wondering how many people upvoting this text has actually built a business, or just want to believe that what was written here is true?
Building a business is messy. Most ideas suck initially. Companies who got the problem right the first time are extremely rare. Just as rare as companies who succeeded with a crappy idea having great execution.
The hero ingredient is luck. Using all the tricks of the non scientific entrepreneurship self-help literature may grant you better odds at getting lucky, or may not.
You know if the problem/idea/execution was good/real after you have customers paying you. And even after that you don't really know was it execution or idea that won the game, only that they were enough good to succeed.
Re: How to brainstorm great business ideas
#49I am a serial idea writer and I have to agree with the author. Ideas are inherently valuable, maybe not financially, but they're valuable to have and valuable to society to share. It makes me angry that people actually believe ideas are inherently worthless. Or that without any code or implementation they're worthless. It's a meme that needs to die. It's like having your cake and eating it too. Here's a free idea for…
I think the ideas being worthless meme is an over-correction of the person that thinks the idea is all of the value and wants to hire an engineer to 'just do the implementation' for little reward. Ideas have value, and someone who can unite people with a clear vision can do incredible things but the implementation is a big part of the actual difficulty and usually you have to update the idea as you learn more from th…
Yep, it’s because of all the obnoxious “idea men” out there that try to treat technically skilled makers like ditch diggers who just need to be told where to dig the hole and how big.
Re: How to brainstorm great business ideas
#50There is an interesting bias going on here. I'm wondering how many people upvoting this text has actually built a business, or just want to believe that what was written here is true? Building a business is messy. Most ideas suck initially. Companies who got the problem right the first time are extremely rare. Just as rare as companies who succeeded with a crappy idea having great execution. The hero ingredient is lu…
> The hero ingredient is luck.
This... 100% this!
I've mentored and worked with dozens of entrepreneurs and small businesses over the last few years and I mention this to all of them but it's not a case of "if I wait around I'll get lucky". You still need to be active and work hard and fix the right problem with the right solution and then, if you get lucky, you'll succeed.
I teach entrepreneurs to pitch and tell them to go to relevant events. Consistently. They may need to go to 200 events and pitch at them because you have no idea what one of those 200 events will give you the break you are looking for. And then at event 124 someone says "hey, I have that problem, let's talk"...
Now, it's not all about pitching at events but I'm trying to get across the story that you need to consistently do something for a while so that when luck strikes at that particular time you are there.
The chances of getting lucky right out the door are very slim.
Also, I make sure they understand this: Love the problem, not the solution!