Here's two suggestions (unrelated) that may help your brainstorming, with the benefit of some (potential) validation of market need: 1) (top down) check out ww

Here's two suggestions (unrelated) that may help your brainstorming, with the benefit of some (potential) validation of market need: 1) (top down) check out www.crunchbase.com - there are about 75k companies there, a significant portion that are startups. Browse privately held companies in a category interesting to you -- you'll see 'current problems' that entrepreneurs and VCs believe are commercially viable. 2 (bottom up) Take a few areas of professional or personal interest, look at the leading tools/services/companies related to each of those interests, and for each check out discussion boards, FAQs, blogs, etc. to see where there is a lot of interest (via suggestions, complaints, work-arounds) for getting something fixed, or doing something better. As you start to think of how YOU might tackle the problems you see from above, you are generating startup ideas ...