

Ask HN: How do you find out ideas for tech startups? - igors

I see that some people have continuously ideas coming out from their mind. How do you find so many ideas?<p>My previous startup just failed (mostly because of the wrong team and not so much passionate people) and I'm looking for new ideas/problems to go after, but I'm really find this a hard process.  I've also read various list of possible startup ideas around the web, but any of them light up anything
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mindcrime
I just started[1] a little exercise/experiment where I'm trying to come up
with 10 new ideas each day, for the next 6 months. I'm 3 days in (well, today
is day 4, but I haven't done the exercise yet today), so nothing I have to say
necessarily means much, but here are some observations I have so far:

1\. Sit down with a blank piece of paper (or an OOo doc, whatever) and type:

1)

and then think until something comes to mind. Maybe the first idea that comes
to mind seems stupid. Fine, put it in the mental "bin" and move on. You may
find that later, a different idea merges with part of that "binned" idea, and
something emerges.

2\. Read a lot, and not just the typical startup stuff. Grab the latest issues
of Popular Science, Popular Mechanics, Discover, New Scientist, Scientific
American, American Scientist, or whatever. Also, read magazines / blogs /
whatever related to either a hobby you're into, or an industry you're
interested in, or both. When you do your brainstorming exercise, try to find a
way to spin an idea out of something you recently discovered / read / came
across.

3\. Look around the room you're in, and take the first thing you see and try
to come up with an idea around that. If no idea is forthcoming, look for a
second "thing" and then try to combine the two. So, if you see a book, think
of an idea related to books. If you don't come up with anything, look around,
and maybe you see a vacuum cleaner. And _bingo_ you come up with the idea for
a clip on book holder for vacuum cleaners! (OK, that's probably a rubbish
idea, but not every idea is going to be a good one)

4\. "Borrow brilliance." Or, to use the old quote "Good artists copy, great
artists steal" or whatever. Spend lots of time hanging out with smart people
and bat ideas around over coffee or whatever.

5\. Try to think up two seemingly unrelated things and then find a way to
merge them in some fashion.

6\. Think about problems you have in your own life, and try to come up with a
solution.

7\. Go with the Jamie Zawinski thing about "if you want to make money with
software, find a way to help some guy in his dorm room get laid."

8\. etc...

[1]: [http://fogbeam.blogspot.com/2012/09/project-10-ideas-day-
for...](http://fogbeam.blogspot.com/2012/09/project-10-ideas-day-
for-6-months.html)

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vivianxue
Start thinking in terms of what you or your non-tech friends like to do
already. What you come up with doesn't have to be extremely innovative or even
new. You can subsequently focus on executing that idea in the best way
possible.

