Idea Generation

Finding startup ideas is a subtle business, and that's why most people who try fail so miserably. It doesn't work well simply to try to think of startup ideas. If you do that, you get bad ones that sound dangerously plausible. The best approach is more indirect: if you have the right sort of background, good startup ideas will seem obvious to you. ... See more

A lot of the best ideas seem silly or bad initially—you want an idea at the intersection of “seems like bad idea” and “is good idea”. (It’s important to note you need to be contrarian and right, not simply contrarian.)

As a seed-stage investor at First Round Capital, I get to meet a lot of founders who are exploring and validating their ideas. It’s an exciting time for them and, as a former founder myself, I relate to the thrill and anxiety of just getting started. You believe you’re onto something and feel ready to bring your idea to life, but there’s also a lot... See more

Ideation is an essential part of every startup. There’s a cliché that ideas are a dime a dozen, but executing to get to the right idea is actually key to success. If you are going to dedicate the next ten years of your life to your startup, you will want to spend enough time initially to validate it as a concept worth working on. First look for pro

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Empirically, the way to have good startup ideas is to become the sort of person who has them.