Let’s dig deep into how you can get startup ideas. Startup ideas are all around us we just have to look and in this article, I will be outlining 7 ways to get startup ideas.
Think of ideas with an unfair advantage
This first recipe is the best one. It is the one that is most likely to lead to good ideas, and least likely to lead to false positives. You start with what your team is especially good at and think of ideas that you would have an unfair advantage in executing. This way you can have an automatic market fit. First, go through all of the companies you have worked for. Ask yourself a series of questions that can help you generate Startup ideas.
- what are things you learned there that other people don’t know?
- for each company, what seemed broken?
- What parts of company life were clumsy?
- Were there things that your company built in-house that other companies might need?
Think of problems you face
A great example of this is DoorDash. The founders were trying to get Thai food delivered to them in the suburbs, and they realized there was no way to do it. So, they built DoorDash.
Think of ideas in 10 years frame
What would you be excited to work on for 10 years, even if it didn’t succeed? What things are you passionate about? A great example of this is Boom, which is making a supersonic airplane. The founder of Boom, Blake, came up with the idea basically by asking himself this question. He had not worked in aerospace, and he was not a building-an-airplane expert, but he was just obsessed with the idea of supersonic travel.
Think of things that have changed recently
Look for things that have changed in the world recently, and think of ideas that are now possible because of this change. For example, a new technology, a new developer platform, a new regulation, a new problem in the world. What are waves that you could ride?
Think of new variants of successful companies
A good example of this is Standard Cognition. Now, the story of Standard Cognition is that Amazon has recently created Amazon Go, which is a grocery store that automatically tracks the things you take off the shelves, so you don’t need to go to the cashier. Standard Cognition realized that every retail store would want the same technology, and that’s what they do.
Talk to people about their problems
you can also crowdsource coming up with an idea by talking to people you know, and asking them for problems they want to be solved. This is especially interesting to do with people who have particular areas of expertise. However, this will not work well with all kinds of people because they are not that skilled in detecting problems and Startup ideas.
Think of industries that seem broken
Look for industries that seem broken. Any industry that seems broken is probably ripe for disruption. A good example of this is a YC company called LendUp, which is a replacement for payday lending. And part of the founding story of LendUp is that the founders just noticed that payday lending was a broken and scammy industry. The downside of this recipe is it will often take you to ideas that have poor founder/market fit.
Disclaimer: The content in this article has been taken from YC Startup Library we have repurposed it to make it easy and digestible for our readers.
