Founders: How did you come up with your startup ideas? - tnsn
======
lbutler
I scratched my own itch.

I've worked for about ten years as a civil engineer in the water industry; I
create computer models of water networks for utilities. The software is
expensive, and the UI/UX is terrible, typically of software for large
corporations.

Part of building a model is calibrating it against real-life data, to do this
you restricting valves or roughen pipes in the model. While a model simulation
only takes a fraction of a second, validating results can take a minute or two
because of the bad UI/UX.

I create a web app to simulate the water model in your browser and for it to
run as you make changes with all the relevant data upfront.

[https://calibrate.modelcreate.com/](https://calibrate.modelcreate.com/)

I had a project with 80 hours set aside for calibration; I completed it all in
8 hours with my app.

I'm testing the market now to see if others would want to use it. If so, then
I will look at commercialisation options and see if it's worth developing
further. (Sorry for a LinkedIn post below, this is where all the civil
engineers hang out, and I've already got some validation on it)

[https://www.linkedin.com/posts/lukepbutler_water-
infoworks-e...](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/lukepbutler_water-infoworks-
epanet-activity-6567248865798557696-0cvO)

Work long enough in an industry, and you will find endless ideas to work on,
the only question is will people use them and also pay for it.

~~~
relaunched
I use the same approach. I wrote about my latest project, a task manager for
the post UI world, www.iprompted.com

You can read about how I came up with the idea here:
[https://www.iprompted.com/blog/scratching-my-own-
itch](https://www.iprompted.com/blog/scratching-my-own-itch)

------
sonnk
For me this was from my own frustration: I hate sign-up form and don't want to
use "Login with Facebook/Google/..." either as these companies will have even
more data about me.

I looked for an alternative to these social login buttons but haven't found
any. I decided to quit my job as lead software engineer and created my own
company that offers a social login solution that protects user identity [1].

The previous startup came also from another frustration (maybe because we are
frustrated in France all the time ...) so my pattern would be to find
something that bothers you (and hopefully others) and solves it.

[1]: [https://simplelogin.io](https://simplelogin.io)

------
deanwalton
Similar to others — solving your own problem.

But I've recently learned (the hard way after multiple startups) that the key
is to validate your idea first before investing too much time in it.

That and I've also found that the best ideas are the easiest. Everything slots
into place, makes sense and you get an overwhelming feeling of "why had I not
thought of it before". I always start with writing notes and if the ideas are
flowing faster than I can write them down, I _usually_ know that it's a good
concept.

I hope that helps!

------
kleer001
the Sillicon Valley Idea Generator

over at

[https://www.kamogo.com/5](https://www.kamogo.com/5)

------
pcunite
I needed/wanted it.

