Ask YC: So you've had that great idea..

[ajkirwin]

You were in the bathtub/shower/sahara/bordello and you suddenly had that Eureka! moment. You have had an idea that you're sure will make you rich/replace {system x}/get all the hot girls.

But.. then what next? Where do you go from there?

I've no shortage of Eureka!'s, but seem a little lost on how to proceed from there on.. so advice would be nice!

[24pfilms]

I think writing down is definitely the key. I then use a mindmap tool to kind of block out the logic and process to see if it makes sense(think like a user). Then I see what I can do to make it really unique. The classic key ingredient.

[pchristensen]

I usually forget about it. If it's a good enough idea, my subconscious will remind me of it later, with a few of the kinks worked out. I've had enough ideas that made me jack squat because I didn't have the time/conviction/confidence to work on them.

If you have lots of ideas but none of them are nagging you, you probably don't care about it enough to do a real startup. But that doesn't mean you can't use one of the other Eureka's as practice, and who knows? If you want more successes, fail more often. Make a cheap, bare bones v0.1 and find out what other people think. Now get to work!

[skmurphy]

Write it down. As important as the solution write down the problem you are trying to solve, who the customer is (everyone is not a customer), what the key features and benefits of your approach will be, and what are the real alternatives (could be many different aspects of the status quo) that you are replacing.

To the extent that you are supplying the last piece to an emerging technology (see Business Week "Long Nose of Innovation" article) you may be more successful than something that represents a complete break with existing efforts. This doesn't mean that technology has to come from the industry or discipline that you are focused on, it's also a valid approach to find a solution from one field and re-purpose it in another. Andrew Hargadon offers the example of the developers of the Reebok Pump shoe using proven "air cast" technology to build a pump for a basketball shoe.

Since you get a lot of ideas you should keep two master files: the solutions you have come up with and the problems you have identified. A number of posters have pointed out that good ideas may take a while to percolate so develop a system for writing them down and keeping track of them.

We offer a 97 page workbook called "Mapping the Path From Idea to Revenue" that we make available to anyone willing to answer the first seven questions in the book.

Mapping Path from Idea to Revenue http://www.skmurphy.com/services/workbook/

First Seven Questions in Developing a Software Product http://www.skmurphy.com/resources/developing-a-product/first...

The long nose of innovation http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/content/jan2008/id20080...

The Trouble with "out of box" thinking (Hargadon Interviewed) http://www.acm.org/ubiquity/interviews/v4i30_hargadon.html

How Breakthroughs Happen by Andrew Hargadon http://www.amazon.com/How-Breakthroughs-Happen-Surprising-Co...

[sanj]

Go build it.

Not a whole scaleable gigantic beast of code, but that minimal nugget that is its core.

This does several things:

1. Evaluates if you care enough to follow through.

2. Sees if it works the way that you hoped/wanted.

3. Identifies the hard bits.

Start building!

[shafqat → sanj]

Once you build it, make sure you know when to drop it. Building something people want is the most important advice. Throwing away something when you realize people really don't want it is just as important.

[skmurphy → sanj]

I would actually try and sell it first.

Write up a one page description of what you would be able to offer and see if you can get some potential customers/users excited enough to critique it. A strong negative reaction is as useful as a positive one (provided you get criticism that identifies issues/problems). A lukewarm response or the answer "it's not a big problem for me" may indicate the need to let the problem and the solution percolate a little longer.

[JayNeely]

The first thing you should do is write it down. Write all of them down, in a notebook dedicated to nothing but your Eureka moments. If you don't have the notebook handy, write it down on whatever is, and put it in the notebook later.

If anything else related to that idea comes to you immediately(connections to news items you've read, statistics you've seen, specific features or UI choices you'd want to implement), write those down too, until they stop coming.

Then, let it sit for about 3 days. Do your usual tech reading during that time.

Does the idea keep nagging at you? Have you been writing down more related ideas on scraps of paper? Are you seeing connections to it in what you read, what you hear, what you say? If yes, then you might be onto something. So...

1) Take it to your braintrust.

If you don't have a group of good, trustworthy friends who are also interested in various tech subjects, you should. Tell them that you've had this idea, and you're wondering what they think. Ask if they've heard of anything like it before. (A lot of times people will say they think X is like your idea. Don't be discouraged; it's human nature to take things we're unfamiliar with and look for something we can relate to. Whatever they mention might not be anything like your idea, but research it, and note the differences.)

2) Figure out what space your idea is in.

Online video? Peer-to-peer? Social networks? Figure out if your idea is an improvement on current offerings, or something with a unique life of its own. If it's just an improvement(and it's not patentable), it's probably not worth starting a company for just to get it copied by all of your entrenched competitors. Instead, this might be a good opportunity to make connections in that space by offering your idea to whichever existing service you like the most.

If it is unique, then move on to...

3) Evaluate your commitment.

It should be about 9 days after you had your idea by now, or at least a week. Does it still excite you? Really excite you? If there appears to be a market opportunity for it, how much effort will it take to enter that market? Are you willing to make that effort? What if it took twice as long as you think it will?

4) Start the startup process.

We have plenty of "A-ha!" moments. If you've made it through the first three steps with the right answers, you've sifted out a moment that has the potential to be more than just an incremental improvement on something that already exists, and something that you yourself can commit to. You still need to do more research, such as "Why hasn't anyone else thought of this before?" and "Are other people going to want this improvement?". The good news is that if you can find a person who's as excited about it as you are, you may have found a good co-founder. And that's the best validation of your idea you can have at an early stage.