“The way to get startup ideas is not to try to think of startup ideas. It’s to look for problems, preferably problems you have yourself.” Paul Graham
Each day I publish a short post like this one. I started the habit with no plan to make money from it.
I wanted each post on YouTube as a video essay too. So I built Multi, a product that turns a written post into a narrated video. Now each video essay I publish is also an ad for Multi.
Problems work like nesting dolls, except the one inside can be bigger than the one you opened. Start solving any problem and you’ll keep finding new problems worth solving. Each one gives you two options:
- Take the good enough answer. Someone already built a tool that solves it. Pay up and keep moving.
- Build the answer yourself. The market has no good answer. That’s your next business idea.
Founders tell me they’re waiting for a “great” idea.
The great idea shows up after you start.
Pick the “dumb” idea, the “crazy” one. Start building it.
Marc Lou runs a portfolio of small internet products. In 2023 he noticed Stripe charged him about $1,600 in fees just to generate invoices. He went looking for a cheaper tool, came up empty and built his own in about 30 hours. He named it ZenVoice and sold it to founders with the same problem. The invoice problem only existed because the portfolio did.
Sometimes the problem you trip over is bigger than the idea you started with. When it is, switch. Slack began as the internal chat tool of a game studio whose game failed. Shopify began as store software a snowboard seller built because the options on the market frustrated him.
Start building anything and you’ll run into problems. Most come with good enough answers someone else already built. The ones with no good answer are the ideas you were waiting for.
🪆
Which problem in your daily work has no good tool yet?
