

Ask HN: Need some guidance to identify a startup idea - lostsoul2011

Longtime HN member writing from a throwaway account here. Before you bury this post as yet another frivolous ask HN post, I urge you to read through it.<p>For the last couple of years, I have had this ambition and itch to do my own startup. To pursue that dream, I left a cushy 9-5 job on the east coast,uprooted my wife and moved to the bay area to join a startup as a Django engineer. Since I did not have any great ideas of my own, I decided to take the next best route possible - to join a startup, learn the ropes, network around and then do my own thing.<p>Its been almost an year now working at the startup and I feel that things are not that exciting at work as before. And the urge to do my own startup has become even more stronger than before. As with several other folks, startup ideas continue to pop up in my head incessantly.<p>What I am seeking is some guidance, some direction in terms of how do I go about finding a viable startup idea. The best answer to that would be 'scratch my own itch'. To answer that, I have made several attempts to scratch my own itch. I worked on several ideas:<p>1) Foodspotting idea - I was midway through coding, when I found that FoodSpotting had already launched successfully (I was way behind in terms of development). 
2) Provide phone call support for pingdom alerts - found that pagerduty (YC company) already does this and does this well
3) Chatroulette for lunch - LetsLunch beat me to launch and execution.<p>I am looking for an idea that has a sustainable, viable business model. A geo / location / checkin / picture / group chat idea does not interest me since I dont use these services myself. Plus, I dont think that most of such services have a viable business model.<p>I've hit a major roadblock in terms of finding that next 'scratch my own itch' idea. I've even tried applying the lean startup model to a couple of ideas, but there didnt seem to exist a market for them.<p>Any pointers or suggestions that you can offer will be appreciated.
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bhousel
> Any pointers or suggestions that you can offer will be appreciated.

Take a break from trying to start things. You said that you've been in your
Python job for a year and it's "not as exciting" as before and now you want to
jump into something else, but you don't know what. It sounds like you're just
getting burnt out.

Forget about startups for a few months. Take your family on a vacation,
exercise, or take up some other hobby.

If you're really meant to start your own company, an idea will come to you and
you won't be able to get it out of your head until it's complete.

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Dnguyen
Are you doing all of this on your own? Find some people who has the same
interest and drive as you. It's much easier to go as a group than alone. Tell
everyone about your idea, don't hide it. You proved that ideas are not unique.
When you tell people, they see how excited you are and the feed back you get
is invaluable. And maybe someone who knows someone also interested in what
you're doing. If you run out of idea, keep talking to people. Go to meet ups.
There's someone out there who has an idea that you may be interested in and
you can team up.

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rajeshamara
Just one suggestion, just because other people are already started doing what
you thought was a good idea does't mean you give up on it. if this is the case
then none of the following companies existed : Microsoft, Google, Apple,
Yahoo, Cisco etc etc.

Just pick what you are mostly interested and start finding a niche which is
useful to the users. The most important thing is to develop some thing users
want. If you can figure out that then your already won your 50% battle.

just my 2c

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lostsoul2011
There's a choice to make between naive optimism and realism. Realistically, I
needed to do at least one thing better than FoodSpotting & given that they had
like a 4-5 months headstart, I decided to not pursue it further.

~~~
rajeshamara
I think you might already know this but it is worth while repeating. Idea is
not important, execution is the most important thing

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phlux
Have any interest in pursuing an app platform in the medical space?

Send me an email and Ill let you know what I am working on.

sam [at] sstave.com

