1–10 of 43 posts
If you completely don't have an idea, but want to work on one, how do you look for ideas? Do you have a process that works for you, or some resources that help you generate ideas?
I prototype with basic materials (post-it notes, notecards, paper, etc.) to see if the idea is fleshed enough and has legs. I do this because a lot of my "failed projects" were just really not well-defined enough to proceed. It also helps build out the idea and helps illustrate deep-ends you should avoid in a prototype, and what an MVP might look like. Simple material prototypes help demonstrate the sorts of capabilities your program will need.
Once a project receives enough attention, I consider actually coding it up. I boil down the idea to the core of what's to be done, and try that. If it fails, maybe it wasn't a good idea, so try alternative approaches if I have any sketched out or any lessons learned from the initial attempt. I try to build up knowledge around the area of the project in-case it deserves a return in a few months or years.
If a project does actually work out, then I justify further development based on effort vs. what I need from the program.
as for fishing for ideas, meditation, doodling, keeping a journal
Is it mathematically possible? Physically possible? Economically possible? Politically possible? Etc?
I have most of my good ideas when I have good mental stimulation. A diet of well written books is the gold standard. Talking to interesting people also helps.
My research process:
Fermi estimation.
Like when I started working on my search engine, I had a raspberry pi 4 with 8 Gb of RAM. I estimated that a webpage was 10 Kb. From that I figured a raspberry pi ought to be able to hold an index containing about 800 000 documents.
This is of course ignoring the fact that the index information is smaller than the document, and that an index requires metadata and operating system space. But like, ballpark wise it's not bad. I got a pi to index about 500k documents.
Then I did some basic research on data structures, both on what's typically used and just independent thinking.
When I had a sketch of an idea, I just go to work.
I'm sure there are topics you're curious about or sound interesting to you. Maybe there's a hobby you wanted to try out? Spend a little bit of time watching YouTube, listening to podcasts, reading blogs or joining discord/slack communities for that topic.
This doesn't have to be some huge investment. Spend an hour or two looking at a topic. This can be in 5-minute increments or a 2-hour block, w/e.
Are you still interested? Do you want to learn more about the topic? Do you want to try your hand at it? Go for it. Go as deep as you want on it, actually make your own version of w/e you're interested in.
Now go talk to people in various communities online. There are so many slack and discord groups out there, you'll find something you connect with. Ask questions. Engage in conversations. If you're feeling up to it, reach out to people to setup video calls. Some meetups are starting to offer in-person events, if you're comfortable doing that.
Still interested, still want to turn it into something more? Check out The Mom Test by Rob Fitzpatrick. It's fantastic guide on how to actually do customer development. Doesn't have to be about making something into a business. He's got great tactical advice on how to get info from people in a regular conversation and learn about stuff.
For example, “why can’t I hail a taxi from my phone?”. At some point, all the ingredients were there but it didn’t exist. Uber answered the question.
Things that you wish existed, especially if they are a combination of existing ingredients.
Then you have to ask “so why hasn’t someone already done it really well?”
Hard to give a complete advice im just a few sentences, but basically this framework gave me the understanding necessary to quickly build out (validate) business ideas before anything is really developed. To oversimplify it - try selling before building it. That will give you a very good understanding of the potential market size, the actual needs of people and so on.
Apply the "take an old idea and reinvent it in light of newer discoveries, new technology, or in application to a new problem" approach.
To do that, read about old ideas in some area of interest to you, that didn't catch on, or were abandoned for whatever reason. Use Google, Wikipedia, Sci-hub, old print magazines, old newspapers, whatever it takes. Look at things through a lens of "Could I resurrect this idea with a new twist that wasn't available when it was first proposed?" Do that for enough "things" there's a chance it'll spark something.
Extra hint: if you're looking for a startup idea specifically, Google for one of the multiple lists of "startup ideas that never work" that are out there. Of course it should go without saying to be very cautious about jumping into a project where many other people have failed with the same idea: there's probably a good reason for their failure. But IF you can find a new angle or hook that's "just right" maybe you can succeed. Or the whole exercise may actually bring a completely different idea to mind. Try to be open minded with this stuff.
Also, find the two video series[1][2] that Alan Kay did on "Inventing the Future" and watch those. He shares a lot of great ideas in those.