How to Get Startup Ideas
November 2012The way to get startup ideas is not to try to think of startup ideas. It's to look for problems, preferably problems you have yourself.The very best startup ideas tend to have three things in common: they're something the founders themselves want, that they themselves can build, and that few others realize are worth doing. Microsoft, Apple, Yahoo, Google, and Facebook all began this way.
- ▪November 2012The way to get startup ideas is not to try to think of startup ideas.
- ▪It's to look for problems, preferably problems you have yourself.The very best startup ideas tend to have three things in common: they're something the founders themselves want, that they themselves can build, and that few others realize ar
- ▪Microsoft, Apple, Yahoo, Google, and Facebook all began this way.
Paul Graham — Essays files mainly under blogs. We currently carry 219 of its stories.
Opening excerpt (first ~120 words) tap to expand
Want to start a startup? Get funded by Y Combinator. November 2012The way to get startup ideas is not to try to think of startup ideas. It's to look for problems, preferably problems you have yourself.The very best startup ideas tend to have three things in common: they're something the founders themselves want, that they themselves can build, and that few others realize are worth doing. Microsoft, Apple, Yahoo, Google, and Facebook all began this way. ProblemsWhy is it so important to work on a problem you have? Among other things, it ensures the problem really exists. It sounds obvious to say you should only work on problems that exist. And yet by far the most common mistake startups make is to solve problems no one has.I made it myself.
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Excerpt limited to ~120 words for fair-use compliance. The full article is at Paul Graham — Essays.