MAKE - Idea

Let's start making, this first step is about how to get ideas for a startup.

The most important thing is to find ideas from solving your own problems. You do that by looking at your own life and observing what your daily challenges are. Then you see if you could make those challenges easier using technology. If you solve your own problem, it's very realistic that there's many more people like you who would also love their problem solved. And that's pretty much what a business is. Solving lots of people's problems in return for money.

In startups, this business can be in the form of an application, a website or even only just a physical service tied together with some technology.

You want to find ideas from your own problems because you'll be an expert on them immediately. I think you need to know a lot about the problem you're trying to solve. Once you have traction and your website, app or startup works, you can learn from user feedback and data you collect then. But that's useful once you're already running. It won't help you find ideas that are suitable for you to execute. First-hand experience with the problem you're solving is best.

There's an issue in itself with only solving your own problems. What if you're not as unique as you think? It takes only a slight glimpse at current startups ideas to see that everyone is making the same stuff.

Everybody's doing them because everybody has the same problems. So how can you find problems that are actually unique and original? Well, become more unique and original yourself.

So, you need to do stuff that makes you explicitly very different. It will get you more unique ideas. That's super cool because now you have two great attributes of an idea. It's not just unique, but it's also something you're an expert at since you've done it yourself. Even if you launch and get competitors later because they see you're making money, and it's a good market, you'll still be in a better position than them because you're real. You've done it. You're an expert in the problem you're solving.

Many companies start not from the problem but from the solution. This is one of the biggest mistakes you can make. Technology needs to solve a problem. If you make a solution for a problem that doesn't exist, it might look sexy technologically, but it won't get users. The problem should always be first, not the technology, not the solution!

To get big, you have to start small. Niches are specific market segments that are shallow enough to easily access, with not many players in there. Niches are a great start because they're usually too small in economic value for big companies to attend to. They're also the perfect size to market a new company towards. Niches go against the ridiculous "go big or go home" attitude. But that attitude isn't realistic. Because most big companies started very small. If you start big from day one, it's the wrong way to go about it. People don't like niches because they're too small for people's egos. But niches are much more profitable than you'd think. If you have "just" 1,000 people paying you $83.33/month, that's $1,000,000 in revenue in one year!

Start with a micro niche and then:

• From micro niche to multi-niche
• From multi-niche to adjacent markets
• From adjacent markets to becoming a platform
• You just became big by starting small!

I don't think your idea should be earth-shattering. If you look at most big startups, their first idea was not earth-shattering at all, most of them. Think Uber. They started as an app where you can simply call a taxi. Right? Then it grew into an entire transport solution. The long goal is self-driving cars, that transport everything, and to replace the entire transport and delivery industry. All that started with a taxi hailing app.

Your first idea does not have to be (and probably should not be) earth-shattering. You start with something small. Don't think too big. Then slowly, you can get to the big part by extrapolating, scaling your idea to a bigger market, from a niche market, and to a bigger more abstract idea.

You don't know what you're going to end up with. That's another point. You need constant feedback from your users in the markets to see what people want and what people use and whatnot. You can't just think of that. You can't think big immediately. You have to start small.

Create a list of ideas and keep track of them. A good start if you're looking for ideas is to keep track of any you might get. How you keep track of your ideas is up to you.

The first list of basic ideas should have zero limits on how weird or crazy the ideas can be. This is on purpose. There shouldn't be any judgment on your first basic creative premise. It can evolve into something more practical later.

The thing with ideas is, that they keep coming back to our brains. You'll get a basic hunch, then weeks later it comes back, and then months later it'll start to manifest in your mind. Then, sometimes even 2 years later, you'll finally start executing it. This is great because your mind is like a rice cooker for ideas. They need to get ready before you can put them out and build them.

Should you make ideas alone or in a group?

I think collaborations can be very dangerous. Because if you work with somebody else in a team, there's a big tendency of groupthink, where everyone starts hyping each other on the value of the idea. The prototype might only get mild validation from paying users, but you're working with this group, and you're already so crazy about it that it doesn't really matter what users pay/do/say. That's very bad. It should only be about the users.

"I'm telling you Joe, we've got something really good here". No, we don't care. It should be only about customers. You see many startups go wrong because they have this group think in the beginning, and it's actually not rational thinking. You're more rational on your own. Obviously, collaborations can work with idea generation too, but I think the most important part of idea generation is getting ideas yourself, then talking to people, customers, users to evolve them. Not talking to your teammates how great your team's idea is.

The worst is to be with people that just confirm what you already think. The best is to test your ideas as quickly as possible. Even asking other people for advice is kind of bullshit. You can't ask "will this idea work". You need to ask the market by building it! Nobody knows until you launch!

The most elementary mistake people still make is not sharing their ideas. No, people won't steal your idea if they like it. And even if they do, they probably can't execute it as well as you. And even if they do, you're not a snowflake! There are thousands or even millions of people with the same ideas as you. Stop thinking you're so special! Ideas are a dime a dozen. Everything is about how you execute.

To me, ideas are worth nothing unless executed. They are just a multiplier. Execution is worth millions. To make a business, you need to multiply the two. The most brilliant idea, with no execution, is worth $20. The most brilliant idea takes great execution to be worth $20,000,000.

~ Derek Sivers in his famous essay "Ideas are just a multiplier of execution"

You shouldn't be scared of sharing your idea because execution gives the idea its details and specifics. That means 10 people with the same idea will execute it in 10 completely different ways.

The benefit of being able to share your ideas is that you'll be discussing them with everyone. Potential customers, vendors, suppliers, whoever. Everyone will have some input on it, which you may or may not use as feedback. Again, the market remains the most important feedback, though.

Not sharing your idea is stupid because it'll stay only in your head. You for sure won't be objective at judging it since you have something called "optimism bias" which is "the tendency of individuals to underestimate the likelihood they will experience adverse events", e.g. you think it'll definitely be very successful.

It doesn't matter if people say "that idea will never work" because they're not the validation. The user paying/using it is the validation, not other people judging your idea! The point of sharing your idea is thus not to get people to love it or hate it. The point is that you get your brain working outside its comfort zone (of talking to itself) and you'll evolve your idea. You'll come up with adaptations of your idea, or entirely new ideas, by talking about it.

To get ideas, try to find problems in your daily life. You're the foremost expert on problems you have, more than anyone else who doesn't have them. If you keep coming up with the same ideas as everyone else: try to make yourself a more original person by actively experiencing different things. Don't shy away from taboos and fringe ideas, that just mean you're ahead of the curve, they might become the next big thing. Don't think big, start thinking small first, then take it one step at a time, you'll become big by starting small. To avoid groupthink and drama: work alone, especially early on. Share your ideas freely to get other people's input on them. Log every idea you have, filter them, and see which ones you can execute upon.