Ask HN: How do you decide between startup ideas? - Kevin_S
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rsweeney21
I used Steve Blank's formula he described in "The Startup Owner's Manual".
Steve is a legend and the process works. I spent 12 months working on a
variety of startup ideas, testing them in the market, pivoting and moving on
to the next one. Eventually we found one that got traction (paying customers).
Two years later, we just closed $13M in series A funding and have dozens of
happy customers.

[http://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/Leading-
Busin...](http://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/Leading-Business-
Analytics-Platform-Numetric-Raises-Nearly-13M-to-Bring-Better-Faster-Business-
Analytics-to-the-Masses-1002995750)

~~~
jacquesm
So, how do you like enterprise sales?

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mitchellst
For my part, I think the partners are much more important than the idea. Good
companies can pivot to find a good market. Bad partners will sink you, or
never get off the ground to begin with.

Select for team, not for idea. The best idea is the one that can attract and
motivate a great team, or one put forward by people you want to work with.

FWIW, I recall Paul Graham writing something that explains how he screens YC
applicants. The upshot is that he doesn't devote consideration the idea unless
he's first intrigued by the team. Whether you're a spectacularly successful
investor in many startups or the potential co-founder of just one, that's
probably a good place to start.

~~~
john_moscow
Except there's a great caveat with this approach. People that are highly
productive and self-motivated often don't give a pleasant impression because
they are fascinated with the idea and don't care for the looks. And vice
versa, those who will look like a great friendly team, will be passionate
about, well, looking great and friendly. They will spend time getting
together, having endless pleasant talks about the latest news and their
favorite TV show and couldn't be bothered to get out of the comfort zone and
actually deliver something measurable.

~~~
mitchellst
I think this is fine for excusing the social quirks of individual
contributors. If you're talking co-founders, though, I'd consider this
"caveat" a red flag. If a person can't bring himself to make a positive
impression to other human beings because he's too enamored of the "idea and
doesn't care for the looks," he probably doesn't have the requisite maturity
to co-found a business that will employ people.

Of course, some people really are all talk and no action. But I suspect you're
assuming too strong a correlation with social skills. The fact is that there
are plenty of brilliantly social people who can and do execute, and plenty of
smart introverts who can't. I'm not saying, "go into business with your
friends!" I'm saying go into business with people you trust and respect.

The corollary is to become someone who is trusted and respected by people who
don't share the same skills and biases you have. Good places to start:
seriously consider whether "the looks" have merit, and practice carrying
friendly conversations.

~~~
john_moscow
I agree with your point, that a certain level of social skills is a must,
although in my experience, when people start competing over making the best
impression, many choices that improve it would be disadvantageous when it
comes to execution.

The simplest example I could think of is typically being relaxed and simply
agreeing with everything that your opponent says gives better surface
impression than being focused on understanding your opponent and actually
trying to defend your point (the classical salesperson vs engineer case).
Except that approach would deadlock your execution, but nonetheless I see many
people successfully using it to gain one's trust and get preferred over
someone who pushed back too much.

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graycat
(1) Annual revenue if successful. So, it's number of users/customers times
average revenue for each.

(2) Ease of getting first users/customers before virality, a marketing/sales
effort, etc. can work.

(3) Some form of _lock-in._ E.g., once a company has all their important data
in database manager X, they will be reluctant to change to Y. E.g., once all
the office is good with office suite software X, they will be reluctant to
change to Y. Once all your friends are on Facebook, you want to join Facebook
and won't want to leave all your friends. And there are more cases.

(4) Various barriers to entry to keep out competitors. Technological _secret
sauce_ can be one such. Also some proprietary data. Sure, have to count some
forms of lock-in as possible barriers to entry.

(5) Ease of developing the product or service to get to good profits, e.g.,
your wife is pregnant, your three year old needs braces on her legs, your nine
year old needs braces on her teeth and wants to ride horses, your 11 year old
wants to be an Olympic figure skater, your 16 year old wants his own car and
to go to a private high school that will let him race ahead in computing, and
your 18 year old has done really well in violin, e.g., much as in

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvtibhCdepQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvtibhCdepQ)

[October 27, 2017 will be exactly 100 years since he did that, fresh off the
boat, at Carnegie Hall and got a remark from a violinist in the audience
"Isn't a little hot in here?" and a remark "Not for pianists!"]

has been accepted to Julliard, and wants a $500,000 violin (down from th $15
million he really wanted). And, by the way, you need a larger house and want
an enclosed, Olympic pool. So, you want profitiability. Oh, yes, everyone in
your family over the age of 5 wants the new iPhone for Christmas. Your wife
needs a new SUV, bigger than the last one. You want a Corvette, e.g., just to
save time driving to work you understand. Oh, yes, the new house needs a four
car garage.

(6) Technology is your friend that helps you make money and not your enemy
that threatens to run you out of business.

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drewrv
People don't like to say it because they're afraid of sounding lazy, but you
should do whichever is easier. Is building one of them going to be easier than
the other? Is marketing/selling one of them going to be easier? Does one of
the ideas require raising money?

Building a sustainable business is hard enough in and of itself. If you can
avoid having to woo investors, or dealing with Chinese factories, or months
long sales cycles, do it.

In addition, this will force you to think realistically about the skills and
deficiencies on your founding team.

~~~
danenania
There's a natural tradeoff here though: the easier a business is for you to
build, the easier it is for others to copy it. If you're a skilled
practitioner doing something near the limits of your abilities, it in no way
guarantees that you'll find product-market fit, but when you do, the market is
more likely to be yours for awhile. There will be fewer people out there who
are capable of competing with you and it will take them longer to get up and
running.

~~~
drewrv
Agreed. If something is too easy it gets too competitive and you're working
for scraps. But if one is a skilled practitioner, pushing the limits of that
skill will be "easier" than learning a completely tangential skill.

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thisisxavier
Don't want to hijack the thread, but even more basically, how do you _get_
startup ideas? I've read what PG has to say and others, but nothing is
clicking.

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Thriptic
Find a domain expert and ask them to walk you through their day or shadow
them. Also, ask them what sucks. I could literally throw ten ideas at you
right now of fixable things of various complexity in my domain (academic
bioengineering).

Another strategy is to look for large problems in your industry that have been
solved and then try to find analogous problems in other industries where the
same or a similar solution could work.

For our startup, my co-founder and I went and talked to friends and contacts
of mine in medicine and generated a list of 15 or so things we thought were
everyday pain points for many individuals. We then shelled out some money and
went to an industry conference to field test them. It turns out that all of
them were being actively worked on, but while we were exploring them we
stumbled upon another idea which is now the basis for our startup.

~~~
silentfish
I always hear about this abstract guidance to get ideas but haven't had a
chance to find a domain expert willing to spend time on sharing the thoughts.
What are good examples of when ideas generated this way formed a startup in
the past?

~~~
mmanulis
For me, this started with some broad knowledge about a few industries. E.g. I
have experience building connected devices and visualizing / analyzing data
from those devices. I tried to meet as many senior managers as I could (think
execs or experts) in my network. I knew I was interested in life sciences,
energy management and robotics, so I sought out people in those industries.

I described what I was working on, what research I did on those industries and
that I was looking to better understand the existing problems that might fit
what I was interested in.

Some conversations did not lead anywhere, other times I got excellent,
tactical, advice. That gave me more information and ideas, until I landed on
my current project.

The reason this approach worked for me this time (as opposed to the other
times I've tried this) is that I had a direction I was presenting and I did a
bunch of research to get educated about some of these industries. I don't mean
I studied it for some long time, but reading related subreddits, searching for
conferences and looking up sponsor companies from that, learning some terms
specific to those industries, etc. helped to have a better conversation.

While YMMV, getting warm intros to smart and successful people for a 15-20
minute phone conversation will expose you to what you don't know yet. This
will result in you asking better questions, which can lead to more ideas.

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karambahh
Another aspect besides the field which others gave great insight about, one
aspect is costs and access to capital.

When I decided to go the startup route I had a strong idea, validation from
potential customers, high barrier to entry for competitors, very small amount
of software dev to do, etc.

Only problem I needed between 500k-1M€ of starting capital to get the idea
rolling. I only had less than 50k€ in my name. I found potential investors but
obviously a very large dilution factor.

I switched to another idea, which required considerable amount of software
work that I could do before creating the company but needed about 50k€ of
starting capital. I went that route, found cofounders, a team, etc...and so
far, 6 years and a few small rounds, we raised about 1M€ and are one of the
only players in our field to be profitable, despite competitors having raised
significantly more.

Recently I had a look at another problem I could solve in an entirely
different field (which I know little about). I estimated startup capital at
about 5M€ to reach MVP. Guess what? A few weeks ago a joint venture between
major players in this field announced a 3 year R&D programme and 25M€
investment. There is no way I could beat them.

~~~
edoceo
This guy does Lean

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muzani
Look at the team first. Ideas usually need experts in their fields, so the
teams are usually different. Now imagine you're trapped on an island with
cannibals. Who would you take?

Your idea is wrong. The market could be off, the solution is not a good fit,
the product night be too expensive, the partners might not be receptive.

What are the consequences of that? It's like trying to shoot a small target at
a distance. Your first bullet will miss. That's fine. But how will you hit it?

If you only have one bullet, very limited resources, are you accurate enough
to not miss? Do you have a high firing rate? Can you do 3 prototypes/day? What
are the odds of hitting other targets in the field even if you don't get
yours?

But there's more.. most of your targets will actually be hidden. Now how well
do you know your space? If you are building something for millennials, a
partner be a millennial. If you build something for city councils, ideally one
partner has managed a city council. The more you know your space, the easier
it is in everything.

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tmaly
1\. scan online forums for common problems if one exists. This is a manual
effort, but it can pay off as you will be building something that is already
in need.

2\. do some customer development, but be very careful about introducing bias
into your questions. This would give you bad data if you ask the wrong types
of questions. See the book The Mom Test

3\. listen to a few podcasts where founders are interviewed. The older YC
podcasts are really good. If your going for a two sided market, I would
caution you. This is more challenging than other types of ideas.

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cujic9
Talk to potential customers, and pursue whatever seems to have the most
traction.

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ecesena
This year I experimented focusing on partner first - I went through a list of
good friends and bug them one by one with a different idea, tried to motivate
them, and see which one kept the work going. So far I have 4 projects that
survived (meaning are still worth investing time) out of a 10th or more.

I'm not interested in building a new startup now, though, that's why I did
this specific experiment.

Experiments aside, in general I think you should focus on problems and how
quickly you can get the first $ with your idea/solution.

So you list 10 ideas, you look at the core problem each tries to solve, think
if you like to work on that problem/space (not the current solution, because
you may change solution down the road), try to figure out who could pay you
first, and estimate how quickly you can get something working which is worth
your first users to pay for.

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asnyc
I faced this problem, and face it on a regular basis. I get just too many
ideas, I used to note them down, and the list grows bigger and bigger. The
only way to resolve the issue is knowing that finding ideas is easy, but
execution is king. You need to work out and analyze their potential. You need
to sit down, brood over every idea and look at every angle \- problem you are
solving \- target market (size, barriers to entry) \- competitors \- do you
have a team which can solve this problem efficiently etc. etc.

This will definitely prune your list of ideas.

Next, you will need to discuss the chosen few ideas with prospective
customers, and see if they "really" need this, are ready for this. You will
need to develop prototypes, get some early customers, see how they like it.

Basically, start executing.

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staunch
1\. A _technology_ (or _technology_ -backed phenomenon)

2\. You're _sincerely_ excited about (i.e. love working on it in your personal
time)

3\. You _bet_ is going to change the world in a positive and significant way.

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ftxrcc
Suggested reading: Zero to One by Peter Thiel. It's a great book and it goes
over this topic.

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horsecaptin
\- Which company do you see yourself working crazy hours in?

\- Which company pays you the better base salary?

\- Which company has a business model that you can get behind.

\- Which company will let you achieve personal goals (perhaps you'd like to
get fit, or travel, or date and settle down).

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jasonwelk
The one that I most cannot stop thinking about. I'd rather work passionately
on an idea with questionable room for success than less enthusiastically on
one that just offers greater commercial viability.

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igammarays
Tell us right now. We'll give you feedback. Don't worry about the competition:
anything big enough worth pursuing is not going to be hurt by writing a few
sentences online.

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saran945
for mass/consumer market - the idea must be usable to me before I expect
others to use it, making money is not easy thing due to long waiting time.
recently hybrid platforms (digital + physical) got good success than purely
digital one's. I think, passionately working on by 'watching' what customers
do with the product is key to success. Usually people have passion in the idea
stage, deciding based on hype is always leads to failure. mass market is a
marathon race, luck plays critical role.

for enterprise - may be able to make money earlier than consumer market. I
think reading "startup" books provides good insights, process to follow.

for niche: domain knowledge, few early customer are critical for success. may
be able to reach customers easily, may not be able to scale.

Generally, speed and assumptions decide fate for any idea. particularly
"assumptions" are the #1 enemy of every idea/startup.

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poletopole
I used to have a complex formula, but now that I'm older I realize how much of
an investment starting any business is. Now it just boils down to the question
of if I want to spend the next 10 years of my life on an "idea".

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egfx
Intuition

