Idea Generation

--

It’s important to be in the right kind of environment, and around the right kind of people. You want to be around people who have a good feel for the future, will entertain improbable plans, are optimistic, are smart in a creative way, and have a very high idea flux. These sorts of people tend to think without the constraints most people have, not have a lot of filters, and not care too much what other people think.

The best ideas are fragile; most people don’t even start talking about them at all because they sound silly. Perhaps most of all, you want to be around people who don’t make you feel stupid for mentioning a bad idea, and who certainly never feel stupid for doing so themselves.

--

I worry that many will take away the wrong lesson, i.e. that every idea has potential, no idea is stupid. Many companies are trying to inculcate this into their cultures thinking they can replicate SV's success by being more open. I think most will quickly find this to be an untenable way to live, because it's only half the picture.

I think the real take-away is more nuanced. Open unconstrained environments tend to produce the very best ideas (not just good ideas), and it's important not to kill new ideas too early. That said, all those ideas eventually need to be tested against the crucible of reality. Generate lots of ideas, but be ready to ruthlessly edit and kill those that don't work in reality. As pg said, innovation is two-step process -- and those 2 steps (generate, then edit) are discrete, not to be mixed. High infant mortality during ideation means good ideas get killed. But loose or no filtering at all means you're throwing good money after bad.

My improv teacher tells me that to produce great work, we have to work out of abundance (lots of ideas), and also work out of failure (fail a lot). Abundance in itself is not enough, nor is failure on its own.

This reminds me of David Heinemeier Hansson's talk at Startup School waaayyy back.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CDXJ6bMkMY

The gist: funders tell founders all the time to catch a wave. Go big or don't bother. The reason is that the funder must have a big payoff and small outcomes don't cut it.

But there's plenty of room for a small, well-run company with no aspirations of getting bigger. I believe the analogy was: best Italian Restaurant in the city.

The other advantage of thinking smaller than "huge" is that success is so much more likely because the competition tends to be less intense.

Maybe the author and I have a different idea of "huge," but the examples suggest otherwise.

If you're looking for a community that embraces the small startup idea and has developed a lot of material for exploring it, check out Microconf:

https://microconf.com

There's of course a balance to be struck depending on the idea's scope and urgency. Both may change with refinement.

Idea generation is both a learned skill and intrinsic to a person's circumstance and psychology. Ample unstructured time, low amounts of stress, and an affinity for day dreaming tend to help. Over time you grow to actually enjoy deep thinking as recreation.

I've noticed whenever I'm focused on a particular idea, it kind of forms a lens that shapes my world view. Anything I then encounter I view as a puzzle piece, which my mind attempts to reconcile into the larger puzzle that is the foremost idea in my mind at the time. It's a very similar dynamic to PG's musings on the subject.[0]

[0] http://www.paulgraham.com/top.html

Obviously 'love' implies more attachment and longevity of subscription, but a million x even just once is still 10,000 hundred xs.

But maybe that's just my 'if I started a company I wouldn't be thrilled at the thought of taking VC money' perspective talking.

I am confident that if I were required to make a dedicated effort to 'develop a startup idea' that was absent life experience, success would require more good fortune than if it were coming from a synthesis of experiences, observations and innovative thought.

YC already did an experiment, as Sam notes, that points to the need for some type of fertile idea space that gains nutrients from ones life experience. I've had a bunch of ideas, each more or less fleshed out, and some actually acted on. I stumbled on all of them because I was trying to solve a problem that I had personally experienced.