

How do you brainstorm for ideas for products? - dawie

I recently found a co-founder and we are going to build a product. We are going to start brainstorming product ideas soon and I was wondering how the YC readers came up with their ideas.
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epi0Bauqu
I never try to force it. All the good ideas I've had have just popped into my
head when I wasn't trying to think of them, often in the shower or bath.
However, this doesn't just happen without preparation. I do a few things to
maintain especially fertile ground for new ideas.

First, I read a lot: the WSJ every day, sites like this one, articles on a
variety of subjects, and books. Second, I free up lots of time to do nothing
in particular in terms of thinking, such as going out to eat, taking long
showers and baths, watching TV, etc. Third, I'm always looking for problems
people are having. Fourth, I try talk to people about their general
experiences on the Internet. Fifth, I bounce ideas off my wife. In your case,
that would be with your co-founder. Finally, sometimes I just build things for
a day or two on a whim to see where it goes.

~~~
tocomment
I second the doing nothing idea. I always sit down to watch Mythbusters, or
Modern marvels, and well marvel at the time I'm wasting, but after the show is
over I always have one or two new ideas. Granted not great ideas, but at least
ideas.

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hopeless
I'm always confused by people who don't have an idea but want to start a
business. Surely, an idea has to come first (even if the business ends up
doing something else).

I maintain an ideas list which is added too weekly. They're not all gold dust
and so far none of them have been strong enough for my to quit my day job but
I am interested and excited by a few and actively working on them. I think you
need to have a desire to build XXXX before you have a desire to build a
business, otherwise you're putting the cart before the horse.

Anyway, with that useless rant out of the way, the best way is simply to think
of something that annoys you (or annoys someone you know). Actually, don't
think of the problem, think of the solution when you next come across an
annoyance. And don''t go for something just because it sounds "cool". There's
lots of talk about finding the "pain" that a particular customer/market has
and solving it -- I've heard it so often it sounds corny but it's not.

Here's an idea that's been sitting on my list for a while: new album
notifications. I don't subscribe to individual band newsletters or read music
magazines, and my favourite artists aren't necessarily heard on the radio, so
how am I to hear about their new releases? Well, Windows Media Player has a
comprehensive list of my music and what I actually listen to (an a plugin
interface). How hard would it be to poll Amazon once a month for new albums
from my 20 favourite artists? Business model: Amazon affiliate sales by
allowing users to buy/preorder through your application. Sure its not the best
idea in the world but just an example of how I went from a problem to a
solution (aka a business idea -- and, no, I'm not working on it).

~~~
davidmathers
<http://www.jim-george.com/newTunes/>

~~~
hopeless
Nice (if I used iTunes, but the principle holds). It's also proof towards the
idea that if you find something to be a problem, other people probably do too!

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waleedka
Kevin O'Conner, the founder of DoubleClick, answers your question very well in
his book: "The Map of Innovation: Creating Something Out of Nothing". It's an
excellent small book that you can read in an afternoon. He explains his
brainstorming process and puts a lot of emphasis on selecting the right idea
before spending too much time and effort building it.

~~~
tocomment
I just ordered it on your advise. I sure hope you're right ;-)

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wavell2003
The Medici Effect by Frans Johansson has some good studies on brainstorming in
groups. He cites studies that say that the #1 barrier to innovation in
brainstorming is 'blocking'. Blocking occurs when one person interrupts
others, mid-idea. So in order to get the combination of good ideas without
blocking, all one needs to do is have a piece of paper per participant, and
then one extra piece in the center of a table. Then each participant just
writes down one idea (the idea should be on a focused cause ie ideas on
fighting spam) and then exchanges his paper with the one in the middle. Then
as a participant reads his new sheet, he tries to improve on the idea(s) that
are already on the paper before adding a brand new idea.

I've tried this and it works for us.

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bokonist
I'm not a huge fan of brainstorming, that has never seemed to work for me.

Almost all of my ideas come from encountering problems. Sometimes it me who
encounters the problem, sometimes some one I've talked to, and sometimes I
read about it. For example, I was looking at doing some programming
contracting, but noticed all of the outsourcing sites like ODesk have a race
to the bottom where all that matters is price. Maybe there is an opportunity
for a high end odesk that rewards firms have good communication skills and do
more than work for a spec. For another example, I read about the horrible
CPM's that Facebook gets. Maybe there is an opportunity to build an Adsense-
like product for social networks that allows targeting based on user profile
rather than page content.

The other thing I do is every time I see a brand new technology that has the
potential to create a category, I think of all the things that I could build
off of it. For instance, e-ink has this electronic paper that is easier on the
eyes than paper. Who has high print costs that might benefit from this? School
systems? Universities? If you can think of how a technology applies to a
unique area, you can be the first to a lucrative market.

One of the hardest things about being a young company founder is that you do
not spend time around people with a lot of money. You would be amazed at how
many bigger companies just throw away money on crappy software or throw away
time on things that could easily be automated. One source of ideas would be to
spend time around people who have money.

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henning
see <http://www.paulgraham.com/ideas.html> .

i'm not a PG fanboy, your question is just directly relevant to what he wrote
and i think he's right.

basically, often times ideas that turn into billion-dollar ideas come from
doing stuff smart people would already be doing anyway - writing BASIC
interpreters (microsoft), good search engines (google), etc.

~~~
falsestprophet
big mistake! downmod for not being a PG fanboy.

edit: (seriously)

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tocomment
Another idea is to keep a continual list of the all the problems you see in
your life without automatically thinking of solutions right away. Then sit
down later and see if you can solve any of them, or turn the problem on its
head perhaps and then solve it.

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bmaier
I agree, Its all about the bug list. Think of all the things that bother you
or dont make sense in your every day routine and think about how it should be
done ideally. The solution is the beginning of a startup.

Oh, and keep a running list.

~~~
euccastro
Yes, keeping a journal is key. The habit of acting upon your ideas- even if
it's something as simple as writing them down-, stimulates your brain to give
you more. Also, you can stimulate your creativity and get new ideas by trying
to combine existing ones at random. It's harder to escape the block if you are
in front of a blank page.

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iamwil
It's the same way that cartoonists come up with ideas for their strips. Sit
there, and let your mind wander. Too often, we rely on outside stimulus to
entertain ourselves. If you can cultivate your sense of imagination and
freedom to let your mind wander, you'll think of some stuff.

By another token, read a lot and read widely. Avoid reading junk...like how to
get funded by VCs--you're not there yet. The more you read, the more you see
how everything's related to one another, and you start to see where the gaps
are that you can fill.

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bmaier
I think the more interesting question would be: What techniques do you use to
develop a completely unique solution to a problem?

Most of what is being done today is incremental problem solving. What are some
techniques that can be used to de-construct a problem so that you can get past
previous experience bias and find new ways to solve it?

I guess what I'm asking is, what techniques do you guys use to get a view from
"10,000 feet" above a problem rather than the biased view you get when
immersed in the middle of it?

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mattjaynes
You may want to avoid 'brainstorming' as an idea-production method. There have
been several studies done where it has been shown to be less productive than
other methods. See Marc Andreessen's recent post on the subject:
<http://blog.pmarca.com/2007/07/quote-of-the--3.html>

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gcheong
Have a look at "The Myths of Innovation" by Scott Berkun

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rokhayakebe
Brainstorming is a waste of time.

~~~
euccastro
That makes an interesting point: the poster would maybe get more a varied
response if he asked "how do you _get_ ideas" instead.

One heuristic that may help find different ideas is to look for challengeable
assumptions in your current ones.

If you don't believe in brainstorming, what works best for you?

[Edit: See section 2 on brainstorming here; very interesting:

<http://www.gamasutra.com/features/20051026/gabler_pfv.htm> ]

