"The best way to come up with startup ideas is to lead an interesting life & be curious.
If you put yourself in a position to have problems—if you're at a company, if you start a family, etc—you'll be in a position to have ideas."
Framework 0: "Put yourself in position to viscerally feel problems that matter to other ppl at scale
e.g. most college students focus on their own problems: The Pizza Problem. The Tinder Problem. The Friday Night Problem.
Go work at, say, Chevron & get exposed to new problems."
Framework 1: When they go high, you go boring
Pick something that’s so boring (but hard/big) that other people just *won’t* do it. Something that's neither flashy nor sexy to tell others about.
Snap wouldn't have been possible w/o smartphone cameras
Youtube wouldn't have been without broadband
Wearables wouldn't have been without airpods
What new technology decrease friction somewhere else?
What's now abundant & scarce?
Framework 4:
"Take a human desire, preferably one that has been around for a really long time...Identify that desire and use modern technology to take out steps." - Ev Williams
"basically either take a human need from -1 to 1, or 1 to 10000000000" - @davegoldblatt
Framework 5: Unlock new supply using a fixed physical asset or new digital asset
FB unlocked new supply of content
Airbnb unlocked new supply of residence
Uber unlocked new supply of taxis
Instacart extends existing supply
Things to consider:
The best ideas sound terrible at first
But this a good thing (it means there’s less competition)
Also, the truly good ideas don’t sound like they’re worth stealing (so don’t be afraid to share your idea with others)
“There are no bad ideas. There are only early ideas… They’ll all happen. I’ve become convinced...Every smart person that comes in here with a crazy idea, it’s all going to happen at some point. They will all happen. It’s just a question of when.”- Andreessen
Of course, being early is the same as being wrong practically speaking, so it's worth understanding why is the right time:
Is there an emerging technology? shift in consumer behavior? new regulation?
"Build software that automates your job and then sell it back to your employer." - h/t @shl
Look at the products & services wealthy people use, because soon enough many of the products and services that they use to be more effective & happy will be cheap enough for the masses.
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I’m excited to (finally) announce the launch of my newest incubated venture: @TurpentineMedia, a network of podcasts, newsletters, and more covering tech, business, and culture, from the perspective of industry insiders and experts.
There exist practitioners in every vertical who’d make more money & have more fun being a business creator for their niche, & Turpentine is here to help them do it
Check out the podcast episode with Marc Andreessen below. I'm biased, but I think this interview gives the best insight into his intellectual journey over the past decade.
- Marc's intellectual evolution
- Why billionaires think the same
- @elonmusk as the return to entrepreneurial capitalism
- Larry Page on why giving money to Elon is the best philanthropy
- Effective Altruism's blind spots
Thanks to sponsor @riversidefm. Riverside captures exceptional audio and video quality and makes it incredibly easy for us to record shows with multiple guests.
The idea of global supply chains goes away; the idea of a single price for oil goes away; the idea that we can feed 8 billion people goes away amazon.com/End-World-Just…
Talkshow founded by the excellent @sippey tried this in 2016, but perhaps now's a better time for it since group chats are more prominent today given how stilted social networks have gotten