HN Explorer

Ask HN: Why Ideas Suck?

2 points by joanna_ ↗ HN
I jotted down a few startup ideas. After sometime when I thought about them, they seem like useless.

New apps are popping up making millions.

Why cannot I find a profitable idea?

4 comments

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[dead] ackfoo
You have it backwards. You stipulate that you are interested in profit and then you try to find a profitable idea.

Instead, you should find a problem and try to solve it. Then assess whether it is profitable to do so.

Finding solvable problems is much easier if you have a specialized body of knowledge. You also require the ability to see a problem at different scales.

Or, you could come up with any old useless idea and sell the crap out of it to investors. Then put a large fraction of that investment into mass marketing to make people feel bad unless they have your useless product. That is the usual way it's done.

x0hm
Because your ideas are generated internally. You're creating something before its necessary.

Find something that brings people pain, and then solve that pain. Your ideas will be generated from externalities.

Your thinking should shift from "how can I make this idea work" to "how can I solve this problem".

Fill in natural blanks. Don't try to create, try to solve.

verdverm
Ideas can be generated internally, if you have the pain yourself. This is actually better than finding a pain for someone else that you don't know yet. But totally agree, focus on problems first, and then find a sufficient solution, otherwise you are a hammerhead shark gone fishing
x0hm
That's a good point, and probably a better way of saying it.