im not sure who is right.
The goal is to identify problems, tunable complexity from mundane to moonshot, in a selectable field. You also select the customer, a tunable value for the customer (low to high), and the field/industry.
You could prototype this with a well-developed prompt in your favorite AI and discover other parameters that could be important, e.g. now vs. future or something like production vs delivery vs support vs etc.
For example: suppose you select "bakery" as the field/industry, "medium" as the complexity, "high" as the value and "delivery." You might get potential problems such as:
- low cost direct to customer delivery - rapid point-of-sale - improved warmth of baked goods upon delivery - etc.
This approach could of course be applied to all sorts of fields.
> The 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.
> Why 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.
His article Schlep Blindness [1] is good too.
> There are great startup ideas lying around unexploited right under our noses. One reason we don't see them is a phenomenon I call schlep blindness. Schlep was originally a Yiddish word but has passed into general use in the US. It means a tedious, unpleasant task.
> The most striking example I know of schlep blindness is Stripe, or rather Stripe's idea. For over a decade, every hacker who'd ever had to process payments online knew how painful the experience was. Thousands of people must have known about this problem. And yet when they started startups, they decided to build recipe sites, or aggregators for local events. Why? Why work on problems few care much about and no one will pay for, when you could fix one of the most important components of the world's infrastructure? Because schlep blindness prevented people from even considering the idea of fixing payments.
[0] https://paulgraham.com/startupideas.html [1] https://paulgraham.com/schlep.html
In payments, for example, the problem is never "building the thing". It will always be gaining permission (whatever it means for your application) of hooking into the system. It might require depositing some amount of capital; and it's usually an amount larger than any startup can reasonably get. Most such barriers are there by design.
In some problems, the hard part isn't programming, it's everything else. At least with technical problems you can implement the recipe or streaming site and you're done. But payments was a human problem, requiring people to deal with government, regulation, accounting, etc.
Thanks for that! I was about to add a reply describing my situation of schlep blindness without using that noun. Of course, it'd have taken much longer text.
I'd say besides identifying problems, you'd have to have a knack for look-out for an easy solution for that problem, and most importantly building a business around that solution.
Back in 2004/2005, I was working with a payment gateway; it was super difficult to work with. I forgot the name now. I guess it was along the likes of Authorize.net. But, at that time, it never occurred to me to turn that into a business problem and solve it (face palm).
What's hard is (a) finding a good idea, (b) investing the time and effort to make it reality, and finally (c) marketing it successfully.
How to build it, the labor, the design, the marketing and the capital? Thats where you come in!
Classic Sacha Baron Cohen joke.
> HealthWealth Analytics — Bioinformatics Wealth Management Integrating bioinformatics and financial data to provide wealth management solutions tailored to individuals' health profiles, enabling proactive financial planning in the face of potential health risks.
DataNet Connect — People-Centric Networking Solution
A networking solution that prioritizes people connections over traditional
network protocols. It offers a human-centric approach to networking
technology, enabling seamless communication and efficient data transfer
between individuals and organizations. This technology aims to enhance
collaboration and productivity in diverse work environments.
Clearly, not a time to worry about our AI overlords yet
Here is an output example: https://chat.openai.com/share/9ebf9234-137e-4da5-aba6-927b9a...
Check it out https://neighar.com
>>>> LocalBuzz — Neighborhood Social Network An app that connects residents of the same neighborhood, allowing them to share local news, recommendations, and events. Capital required: Complexity:
I mean: a person who otherwise wouldn't have come up with something that good or that easily, uses a generator tool, picks an idea, builds a business and all goes well.
Does this ever happen? Does it happen fairly regularly?
Check it out https://neighar.com
>>>> LocalBuzz — Neighborhood Social Network An app that connects residents of the same neighborhood, allowing them to share local news, recommendations, and events. Capital required: Complexity:
I bet this already exists but I don't want to verify that.
>> PooPeer — Poop Comparison Community A mobile app that allows users to compare their bowel movements with others, providing insights into digestive health and identifying potential issues
I hope that counts.
He made bunch of other features but that one was standing out.
Unfortunately making startup in health care takes more than implementing some rules, so guy did not end up running the company - but I have funny story to tell about.