4 ms·

Ask HN: Can't come up with a good startup idea, shall I just get a job?

• danieltillett 10y ago
  Is your problem a lack of good ideas or a lack of ideas you are passionate about?
  • nnd 10y ago
    Mostly the latter I would say.
• ztratar 10y ago
  1. I think your problem is relatively detached from the "should I join a company" question. Good ideas take time and are brewed in your brain after you've seen a problem enough. SolarCity's founders (Elon Musks cousins) first were told about solar's potential 2 years before they came up with the idea for SolarCity and their innovative financing model -- they went out and did a ton of research on the market, interviewed experts, and went to conferences before they saw that "no one was owning the problem that people couldn't afford solar." So they chose that as their "idea". Basically, if you want to come up with an idea, go find problems you think are injustices in the world and go off and learn as much as you can, both online and in the real world. Why do those problems exist? Is it a technical problem, social problem, etc? As you go for a root cause analysis, you'll naturally end up coming up with solutions. 2. Sometimes it's simply hard to get a high-level view of the tech industry and the markets that interplay. There are tons of cool startups. I recently wrote a blog post that you might like, where my company lists 75 of the most exciting startups, segmented by problem space: https://jobstart.com/guides/top-startup-picks-explore-the-markets https://jobstart.com/guides/top-startup-picks-explore-the-ma... Hope this all helps, and good luck!
• CyberFonic 10y ago
  Most startups fail. The media only talks about the outliers that have amazing success. Most struggle for a couple of years and then disappear. The lucky ones get bought. If you are feeling unfulfilled, then maybe you should be looking at bigger, real problems. Of course, big problems are typically too big for a solo founder to tackle. I cannot fathom your thinking about joining an established company being an answer. Generally, such companies stifle innovative thinking.
  • nnd 10y ago
    I'm thinking about joining a big company from a perspective of networking mostly. Like you said, big problems are too much for a solo founder.
• mpbm 10y ago
  Well, step 1 is don't die. Step 2 is don't suck. So you have to account for survival first. If you need to get a job, then get a job. You don't need to find a fulfilling passion until step 1 is taken care of. Also, I think it's important to differentiate between work and passion. Most people never discover an alignment between what they do to earn money and what's most important to them. Instead, most people become passionate about something like their family and work is just something they do to support their passion. It's normal to not find a startup you're passionate about. A pattern I've seen described, that might work in your case, is to ask your clients if they have any unsolved problems they would happily pay you money to solve. Use their responses as the basis of your search. Keep paying the bills, and in your "spare time" investigate these problems. If one of them grabs you, ask for payment up front, if you get it, then you've found alignment between a passion and work. An alternative approach is to look for people who are a little bit ahead of you and going in the direction you want to go. People who have found an alignment between their passion and work, and who are a little ways into the journey. Shop among them for one that you want to join. Work on their passion and find out how it's going for them. Another alternative is to dramatically alter the survival equation so that you can devote yourself to exploring potential passions without worrying about survival. Live super cheap; maybe move to Vietnam or something. For context, I found an alignment between my passion and work. At least, I hope I did. One person's asked to pay for it already, I just have to get that part built. I never followed a pattern of trying to find a passion I could turn into an income, I just always chased down and tackled interesting challenges. A while ago realized that the solution I'd come up with had way too much potential to remain a hobby. Now I'm in a place where I'd rather fail at this new thing than succeed at my day job. If that's the kind of feeling you're looking for then try to tackle problems that are standing in the way of things you believe should happen. I was trying to apply the principles of open source software projects to hardware projects and just couldn't personally accept that they weren't working. It started to infuriate me. I could picture all the great things that would come from open source hardware, but none of us could come up with a way to make the process work, so none of those great things could happen. It felt personal. I don't think you're going to find that kind of personal, emotional, passionate connection to run of the mill business problems.
  • nnd 10y ago
• seanwilson 10y ago
  Maybe try changing consultancy contracts and start brainstorming about the kinds of problems you're having to solve, things you have to keep doing manually and pain points you have. It can take months and years for an idea to develop so don't give up.