Help Me HN: Can't think of new ideas I am interested on working on
The problem? I can't seem to think of any idea I would want to work on. I don't have any obvious or immediate itch to personally scratch and I've had several people approach me pitching their ideas, but none of them are very exciting to me. I only want to chase ideas I am genuinely passionate about or excited about. I've literally spent the past few months day after day exploring countless ideas, markets, etc... and just can't seem to get excited enough about anything. Sure ideas are a dime a dozen but many are just junk or uninteresting.
Within a few hours to maybe a few days, I've always found something wrong with the ideas I've thought of or come up with, or any initial excitement about an idea quickly fades. To be fair, many of the ideas probably have solid potential so its not like they're all duds. They're just not exciting to work on. I've never really had this problem before as I've always been previously excited about what I was working on and have always found it easy to stumble onto ideas or think of ideas I wanted to work on in the past. Sometimes more than I can keep up with and most ends up being ignored.
One reasoning (although I don't know if this is really it) that I have considered is that when I was inexperienced, not knowing what I don't know, everything seemed more exciting and I just wanted to do things for the sake of doing them. In hindsight, it seems as though experience is both good and bad in that it now leads to me find so many flaws in ideas I probably would have otherwise wanted to explore if it was the past me. By all means, I don't think I know all that much and compare to many people out there and even people on HN, I'm probably have even less figured out. But I am guessing to some extent maybe in some unconscious way, it's making me less excited about most ideas these days.
I find ideas like Square extremely exciting and disruptive. Unfortunately I don't have anything like that brewing in my head. Does anyone else ever feel stuck? I know there certainly are a lot of people who have more ideas than they can execute on but right now, I'm stuck on finding anything I can be passionate about.
TL;DR - Can't think of an idea I like enough to be motivated to do anything even though I can execute.
PS I know I mentioned Square above but hopefully no one suggests I join another company or even work for Square. I really like starting new projects or ideas from scratch. Square was just a random example of something I would be excited about.
PPS I guess I'm just wanting to have a discussion with others who feel the same way. I don't think there is anything specific anyone can help with in this case (at least directly).
73 comments
[ 4.4 ms ] story [ 122 ms ] threadDisruptive startups can't get funding and there are many people who would like to fund them with small investments of, say, $50.
Here's a solution. Part One: Companies register as public companies on Malta, which is EU, on the cheap (relatively). They aren't listed on any exchange but can privately accept bids for shares from anyone. E.g. 10 shares for $50.
Part Two: A site which offers any company/group/idea the possibility to list (ala Crunchbase) but then for those companies that incorporate publicly in Malta, there's a pre-built mechanism for them to field and accepts bids for equity. There's a very small transaction fee for this.
I've registered the domain OpenStarts.com but it's yours along with the business plan if you want it. Just email me. A quick deck is here: http://c25571.r71.cf1.rackcdn.com/OpenStarts.ppsx
The idea of OpenStarts is that you can be funded by thousands of people you've never met and there's no penalty later.
My name is David Lang, I'm the Community Manager at ProFounder. I wanted to weigh in on the great discussion above. ProFounder does, in fact, allow for equity investments and is legally compliant. As mentioned above, it's SEC compliant due to the fact that investors have prior, substantial relationships with the entrepreneurs.
Malta isn't appealing, I'm sure, to those outside of the EU. But the way I mentioned makes at least possible what otherwise is impossible.
These are fully registered securities. It's legal.
a) building these things makes the world more productive, businesses more agile,
b) you can take inspiration from a wide range of sources (science fiction, journals, movies, video games, old inventions),
c) there's very exciting stuff coming to market right now. Microsoft's Kinect, Nintendo Wii (and whatever their new console will be), lots of interest in 3D displays, while stuff like voice-recognition and natural language interfaces and data visualization is finally getting really good
So many combinations of the above to be discovered, and so many industries to benefit.
Read everything James Altucher has written: http://www.jamesaltucher.com/
He's been around the block a few times, but wears his heart on his sleeve.
Undeveloped ideas are not interesting, developed ideas are.
Many immigrants to the US go back to their home country for surgery and similar health services. It's cheaper and often better. Why can't non-first-generation-immigrants take advantage of the same services easily? Ie. why can't you easily go to countryX and cheaply get your teeth fixed?
Its called "Medical Tourism". Basically middlemen (or a startup) hook up a potential surgery customer to a hospital + hotel (5 star usually). They sell you a complete package including air fare, taxis, rental cars and hotel stay. And of course the surgery.
And it still comes to about 1/4th the cost of surgery in the US.
Its a $10 billion industry if not more. And its going to grow I believe.
I'm located in the SF Bay Area but I'd still love to connect. Will shoot you an email later.
I'd love to work with someone who has done it before so if I can motivate you, that would be awesome :D
Put yourself into the shoes of someone else and fix their biggest problem. Can't think of one?
Go to a non-nerd party and ask around, "What's your biggest problem?".
Disengage.
Then come back. I'll bet you'll find you're more excited.
I've gone through this type of phase in the past. It's usually stress or lack of sleep, when it happens to me. In times when I'm happy and well-rested, I always have a background idea I dearly want to pursue.
Maybe you need to engage in creative procrastination. Find something boring you need to do for a while, then sneak time to have and work on your ideas!
Then, too, if I don't have a flagship project (so to speak, by which I mean a specific project I want to achieve) then I usually work on support structures that it would have been nice to have the last time around. Kind of a sharpening of my tools for the next job, I guess.
I encourage you to take your time, to think about problems that you see discussed here or on Reddit, and find the problems those problems create, then you're headed in the right direction.
If you want to chat about ideas or creativity, my eMail is in my profile. Don't be shy!
I showed your post to my wife and she really thought I wrote it.
Please reach out to me and we'll talk. You can find my email on my about page. Cheers!
the process of finding things you like takes time. be aware of your state through the process and learn from it.
solve the problem correctly once, and you wont ever have the problem again.
Another thought -- there's a special kind of burnout when you realize that the "problems" most new products/services solve not really problems -- they are just about moving money around more easily or in different ways, or convincing people more effectively to buy more things they don't need.
How do you define a good idea? "One that makes money" is pretty weak. Some people can motivate themselves purely on the money something will make; the rest of us need to dig a bit deeper when looking for worthwhile projects. One that solves a particular problem you have, for other people, is also pretty weak if your personal problems are all trivialities. "I travel a lot, and it's hard to find shoes that are still comfortable at the end of a long flight."
With all your resources - what can you do for these people.
You seem to have enough money - you need something with deeper meaning.
Just send me a message.