

Ask HN: Problem finding/choosing an idea to work on - throwAway741

TL;DR: Bad at coming up with startup ideas, or possibly just think about them too critically and don't pursue them. Advice?<p>To give context:
I'm 17 and just started college (web dev. with design degree).
Got my first computer at 13. Have been interested in startups and designing/coding for a couple of years.
Had a job at a web dev. company in Summer '09. They offered me a full-time job as a front-end designer for when I finished high school (Summer '10), but I gracefully declined as I wanted to pursue my own projects and go to college.
Debated about going to college and eventually decided to go for the networking aspect - and since my country has a free educational system, it's not as if going would put me in debt like in the US.<p>But I have this ongoing problem. At first, I just thought I was bad at generating good startups ideas, but now I'm starting to think maybe the problem is over-thinking any ideas I have to the point where I can't see them succeeding.
I have several (somewhat niche) ideas which I know I could turn into high-profit lifestyle businesses, but I want to go for something a little bigger than lifestyle since I'm prepared to put every second I have into it. Also because I have no family to support and don't need immediate income.<p>In the meantime I've just been improving my coding and learning more so I'm not exactly wasting time, but I'd like to get started on a real project with good potential.<p>Is this a common problem? I'd be hugely thankful if anybody could give some advice.
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sp4rki
I have 3 things to tell you.

1) Consider taking another path on your college education. Web Dev curricula
is awful almost everywhere, and borderline regular in the few places where
it's not bad. Study business, engineering, design, computer science, etc.
Universities just can't keep up with the advances in this sector right now,
and the knowledge of managing a business, learning the aspects of graphic
design and usability, or learning how to program in C (or Java, or Python, or
whatever) will all have a bigger impact in your abilities than the curricula
in a Web Dev degree. I'd also argue that for networking those degrees are
better suited to put you in contact with the people you want to come in
contact with.

I was hiring for the company I work for a few months ago, and to be honest,
the only reason I interviewed 3 people with a "Web Dev" degree (2 where
actually university certifications though) was because I had to fill a quota
of people interviewed. Those 3 people totally failed the simple tests I had
for them. Badly. I honestly believe this degree is actually frowned upon in
the industry (don't take my word for it though, it might be a regional thing)

2) Consider that since you don't have any ideas yet, why not go on board at
someone else's startup and get some experience. Hell you could even do so
while you go to college.

3) The best way to come up with a great idea, is to scratch your own itch.
What part of your life do you think is lacking that could be solved or
improved on with a web app? Trust me, it seems hard at first, but with time
you'll realize that there is lots to improve on.

~~~
throwAway741
Thanks for the reply.

1) For what it's worth, the web dev part of the course was given a complete
overhaul to bring it to more of an industry standard this year, and 50% of the
course is now design. I intended to study business but a massive amount of the
curriculum (in this country anyway) would be of little use to me. I've had
business as a subject for the last 5 years and found the syllabus to be
appallingly orientated towards only management - there was literally just a
chapter on entrepreneurial activity. I also considered CS, but there's a lot
on the curriculum that doesn't really interest me, and since I'm certain I
want to specialize in web/design I thought I'd be more interested in this
course. Java is actually one of the languages on this web dev degree. As for
networking, I've joined clubs and societies to network with people from these
other departments.

2) I would definitely take that into consideration. Unfortunately there's
little to no startup culture where I am, but I'm working on it.

3) I've heard that many times, but so far haven't found many personal itches.
However I constantly get feedback from other people about their own itches and
see what I could improve on there.

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maxdemarzi
You are 17, have 3 months of work experience as a web developer, have more
balls than brains, and you want to hit a home run right of the gate.

Take one of your niche ideas, build it, launch it, earn. Then once you finish
that try to swing for the fences.

How long do you think it's going to take? The answer is always longer than you
think, so get that lesson out of the way.

~~~
throwAway741
Thanks for the reply. I'm not sure if my post seemed to indicate I only have 3
months coding experience, but I've been coding for almost 2 years. I'm about
to do exactly what you're suggesting with the niche ideas, but just thought
I'd ask here first. There's a good chance I'll have to work on it longer than
expected, but that's one of the reasons I want to have a great idea I'm
passionate about.

~~~
petervandijck
Don't hold out on getting experience because you're waiting for passion. (If
this is starting to sound like dating advice, my sincere apologies!)

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runT1ME
Ok, I'm ten years older, I'll give some advice.

You're 17, you're just _starting_ to get good at stuff, so don't sweat it so
much. I think the best thing to do is take on an interesting, challenging
project that has _some_ potential to become a product, but will definitely
push you to learn.

Hell, copy someone else's idea. As you work on it, you'll probably figure out
something they aren't doing, or find a product that rests between the
competition. For now, becoming a great hacker is more important than having a
winning idea, because if you do it in the reverse order, you may not be able
to implement said idea...

~~~
throwAway741
Thanks for the reply.

That's pretty much my train of thought, but I just want to maximize the
potential.

Great point about figuring out something the competition aren't doing. And I
understand about becoming a great hacker, that's why I haven't stopped
learning despite not having solid project ideas.

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toast76
What you're explaining is pretty normal. It's also a GOOD thing. The worst
thing you can do is start on a project the moment you think of it. It's like
the honeymoon period of a relationship, everything looks great, then you hit
reality.

A really good idea you'll get to those problems and still be passionate enough
about the idea to resolve them. If you can get past THAT point, that's when
you start working. But you need to put effort into resolving the issues first.
If you're giving up before then it's because you're either lazy (sorry!) or
not that keen on the idea.

You may also need to reassess your expectation of success. I doubt anybody
here has had an idea which they 100% knew was going to allow them to retire at
17. Most of the time you have something you think "could" work, or "might be
cool". If you can live of your projects, that's a good place to start.

~~~
throwAway741
Thanks for the reply.

That's reassuring to hear. I highly expect it's less about laziness and more
about not being keen on the idea!

My expectation of success isn't really retiring at 17. It's just not having to
work for some big corporation when leaving college. Hell, if I had a few
million in the bank already I'm pretty sure I'd still want to work on
startups. The money would just be good security and also help fund projects.

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jakerocheleau
I wouldn't say this problem is common, but it's not rare among developers or
entrepreneurs either. I would say a couple things:

1) don't rush anything. At some point you'll create some beautiful ideas in
your head which you just can't contain - you'll feel the urge to rush at your
computer and stay up coding all night long. THIS is normal. I'm pretty sure
this has happened to most every developer early on in their career (I still
get this and I've been coding for well over 3ish years now)

2) if you really can't sit idly by while you finalize your ideas, try
programming familiar applications which you enjoy. Friends of mine have cloned
scripts similar to Digg, Twitter, Wordpress... it's fun and you build a lot of
project experience.

~~~
throwAway741
Thanks for the reply. In response to point 2, that's actually exactly what
I've been doing (making a Flickr clone), and have found it to be a great idea.

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noahc
It's not that you are over thinking them. You are just giving up too early.
Let's say there are two girls. You go on a first date with one and you see all
the potential. By the time you're on your 67th date, there are a lot of flaws
you've discovered. That's how projects work.

Each hour you spend thinking about it or working on it is like another date.
The more dates you go on the uglier she gets, but also the richer the
experience. Pick a project and just stick with it. The reason why your other
ideas look so much better is because you haven't ever gone on a date with them
yet.

~~~
throwAway741
Thanks for the reply.

Ha, that's an interesting analogy! Will take it into account and sample all
the ladies.

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3pt14159
You get really good ideas by learning a lot and cross referencing little
groups of knowledge. My advice would be to build something solved already (for
example a voting based photo site, maybe with tags) while you learn, learn,
learn. You won't come up with any good finance/law/science/whatever related
startups if you're not immersed with the material.

Also, now that you are in college I recommend taking 5 or 10 hours a term
figuring out how to maximize your marks per course given the least amount of
work/inputs. Highest time ROI you will ever come by.

~~~
throwAway741
Thanks for the reply.

Great point about the cross-referencing, will take it into account.

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Sohum
Not sure how much this is worth, I only recently discovered Hacker News (and
am 17 also), but if you're having trouble coming up with ideas, it's probably
best to find a co-founder who is really good at coming up with ideas....

One of the most common things you here from successful "entrepreneurs" is that
they have an overflow of ideas and not enough time to work on all of them.

~~~
petervandijck
Don't get a co-founder because they are "really good with coming up with
ideas", that is not a good idea. (pun intended)

~~~
mrtron
Do get a co-founder who is good at coming up with customers/revenue if you
don't want to do that side.

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guynamedloren
So let me get this straight... You declined the job to pursue your own
projects, while concurrently thinking you were "bad at generating good startup
ideas"? I might have missed something in there, because that doesn't make a
whole lot of sense. You must have had some idea of what projects you wanted to
pursue when you declined the job, right?

~~~
throwAway741
Well I mostly declined it because of choosing college instead, but yes I did
and still do have an idea of the projects to pursue.

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liuliu
Don't rush. You have a lot of time to figure it out. Just pick one idea you
have now, try to launch it, learn something along the way, if it is not going
to work out, move on. Sometimes I regret that at your age, I am too hungry to
be success early, and that really doesn't help much.

~~~
throwAway741
Thanks for the reply.

I'm far from rushing at the moment. Launching one of the ideas is exactly what
I intend to do, especially after this thread.

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kingsidharth
It's not about the idea dude. No matter how much you believe otherwise. It's
about solving a problem and solving it well. And making money while doing it.

Best will be to work with a startup, colleges are no good when it comes to
WebDev/Design.

~~~
throwAway741
Thanks for the reply.

Yeah I'm trying to discover said problems in any way possible. Possibly could
with a startup but there's very few anywhere here, especially in web/tech.
College seemed like the best way to network, and I don't mind having it for a
fall-back plan since it's free.

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petervandijck
Your hunch that you're overthinking: probably right.

Advice: build experience by actually doing stuff.

ps: if you're not going to build your profitable niche ideas, mind sharing
them?

~~~
throwAway741
Thanks for the reply. Don't really wish to immediately post the ideas, however
I may post some of them in a new thread soon to get feedback as I don't
believe in hiding them worrying if they'll be stolen. Stay tuned.

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bgriggs1
I like your thinking- you should trust it.

Select a HUGE market that interests you and do something disruptive. Your
youth, resources, and lack of risk make the timing perfect.

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gasull
999 business ideas:

<http://www.sixmonthmba.com/2009/02/999ideas.html>

~~~
throwAway741
Thanks for that, some are a little out of my area but I'll read every last
one.

