

Why Ideas are a Bad Place to Start a Startup - joeyespo
http://www.vijayanand.name/2013/01/why-ideas-are-a-bad-place-to-start-a-startup-or-why-ideas-are-evil/

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davidmspi
People do not seek problems. People seek experiences. Experiences uncover
problems. Problems do not instantly lead to ideas. Ideas are created when the
mind takes quantum leaps in thought to create. The feeling of having a
business idea is so profound, the ahha moment is so strong, and the quantum
leap in thought feels so unique that we tend to speak about ideas not
problems. In reality, they are 2 sides of the same piece of paper (think
mobius strip).

Ideas are not a bad place to start a startup.

Bad ideas are a bad place to start a startup.

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ThomPete
Ideas are the only place to start a startup. Without the idea on how to solve
your problem you have nothing.

Nothing to fail with, nothing to execute on, nothing to keep you going.

~~~
simonw
Without the problem to solve, there's nothing to build the idea on top of.

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ThomPete
In other words. None is worth more than the other. They are both equally
valuable.

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urlwolf
I totally agree, and the article is well-written... but haven't we heard this
already? It feels like Amy Hoy's core ideas: 1- start with an audience, not an
idea. 2 - observe customers in their natural habitat (the sales safari); do
not ask them direct questions. 3- find pain points 4- Market to a group you
are part of.

Maybe the author is taking Amy's class, 30x500? I'm not even taking it and I
know all this :). It's been blogged for a while now.

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BobWarfield
Start with an audience, not an idea: Agree!

In fact, start with a Content-Audience Fit if you really want to get
somewhere:

[http://smoothspan.wordpress.com/2012/12/10/the-very-first-
th...](http://smoothspan.wordpress.com/2012/12/10/the-very-first-thing-a-
founding-team-needs-to-do-achieve-content-audience-fit/)

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moccajoghurt
The article sounds a little like business studies 101, but I think it's a good
read and a lot of people should think first before investing in a business.

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dageshi
This article seems to have plummeted very quickly from the front page? Does
anyone have a clue why that might be?

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moccajoghurt
Maybe some "illegal" upvotes have been detected?

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martinkallstrom
You think that starting with an idea leads to fragility and that there is an
off chance that you succeed. You are probably right. You state an alternative
process which you say is leads to higher success rate. Great, but where is the
proof? The part where you say this has increased success rate from X% to Y%
with other variables kept constant is missing.

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melonakos
You say that this blog article would be improved if he had quantified the
success rate of his observations, and you say claim this would constitute
"proof" of the goodness of his post. Where's your proof that quantified
metrics would make the post any better, or that indeed such quantified metrics
would even constitute such "proof"?

Just giving you a hard time :)

~~~
martinkallstrom
A quantified proof might not be needed, but at least the slightest indication
to if he has seen this process work in the real world would have made the post
much more useful.

