Thread by @accountd_hq

Y combinator explains:

How to come up with startup ideas.

7 Recipes of generating startup ideas in order of likelihood of reaching good startup ideas:

1 - Start with something you and your team is good at - Ideas you come up this has automatic founder market fit. This may not be right for young founders.

2 - Start with a problem you personally encountered, specially when you are unusual position to notice it:

Eg - 2 young founders started an eCommerce store for veterinarians supplies. The founder's dad was veterinarian & they notice that current process was inefficient.

3 - Think of things you are personally wished existed:

Founder of Doordash wished that local restaurant food could be delivered to drom. Hence they started Doordash.

However, this strategy might lead to bad ideas.

4 - Look for things in the world have changed recently:

COVID lockdown changed behavior of lot of people. Someone noticed it early and made GATHER TOWN for people to interact online in a fun way.

5 - Look for new variant of companies that have succeeded recently:

Nuvocargo, a company that helps US companies to import stuff from Mexico. This is one case where founders really found a great idea inorganically.

6 - Talk to people & ask what problem they have:

Start with picking a fertile idea space and then talk to people in that idea space. Talk to users, founders and anyone in that space.

This way you'll have mental map of whole space & will understand where the good & bad ideas are

7 - Look for big industries that are broken.

P.S. It is hard for to know whether the startup idea is good or bad and only way to know it is to launch it.

#ycombinator #starupideas #startups