#101: chasing bold ideas

Pay attention. What do you see that no one else sees? A word. A feeling. An aesthetic. Do you notice fonts all around you- on neon signs, and restaurant awnings? Do you notice colors? Do you feel taste? Do you pause to appreciate a shot in a movie that no one else cares about? Your edge is often at what you notice, and the world ignores.

Once you're living in the future in some respect, the way to notice startup ideas is to look for things that seem to be missing. If you're really at the leading edge of a rapidly changing field, there will be things that are obviously missing. What won't be obvious is that they're startup ideas.

So we’re all chasing novelty. The pulse of something new, something brilliant by which we can distinguish ourselves. The irony is that we don’t know it until someone else shows it to us and then we all copy them and the thing ceases to be novel or particular.