3 ms·

A very solid list of the intellectual side. The other equally important side is the emotional. I would at least add: #8 Expected Long-term Passion I have tons

by staunch 15y ago

A very solid list of the intellectual side. The other equally important side is the emotional. I would at least add: #8 Expected Long-term Passion I have tons of startup ideas. I think my current list is around 50 and those are just the ones that I write down because they're nagging at me. Just about any of them could be successful to some extent. Most of them would make it over this list. The thing that would prevent me from work on 98% of them is my own self-awareness. I know that I couldn't sustain my motivation to work on them over the long-term. Any sufficiently ambitious startup idea is going to be a 3+ year commitment to fully execute on. That means you have to be deeply and genuinely be interested in the problem enough to sustain your for years. That's a very high bar that very few ideas make it over.

revorad 15y ago
What do you do when the expected value of long-term passion suddenly drops after schlepping for a year?
- staunch 15y ago
  Check whether you can reinvigorate your passion. What made you stop loving it? Did you get distracted from your original goal? Did you over-complicate it? Did someone else solve it better? Be brutally honest with yourself about what's preventing you from getting excited and fix that. If you find that you just fundamentally aren't excited about the problem them you owe it to yourself to move on as soon as is practical. Chalk it up as a life lesson and be more careful next time.
  - revorad 15y ago
    I've been there once and I think the matter is very delicate. Sometimes, you have to push through a terrible lack of excitement. Knowing if it's one of those times is hard.
    - staunch 15y ago
      That's true. There's a big difference between an emotional slump that lasts a short time and a big drop in passion that seems permanent.
- nollidge 15y ago
  I'll be honest, this is probably the primary fear I have that's kept me from even attempting something in startup-land. Even if I have an idea (EDIT: or discover an existing startup) that I feel passionate about now, I have no idea how I'm going to feel in X months from now. My passions are fickle and manifold.
mattmaroon 15y ago
I thought about something like #8. It's a legitimate concern for sure. I just tend not to naturally come up with ideas that I wouldn't like working on. I don't feel I can judge very far in advance how much I'll like something 3 years down the line, and most startups are dead or evolved into something else by then anyway.
- staunch 15y ago
  My primary heuristic for finding startup ideas is coming across problems in my own daily life. As long as the problem exists, and I'm passionate about it, the only thing that will change is the solution. That's exactly why it's so dangerous to be passionate about solutions. There are other ways to come up with ideas, but for me the only thing interesting is solving problems I see with my own eyes. I know there are very good companies built in different ways though.
- keeptrying 15y ago
  The idea is very different from the work you'll be doing to implement it. So this #8("Expected Long-term Passion") is a REAL requirement. For example: you love adventure sports and want to create a marketplace for adventure sprots. The truth is you WILL NOT be doing any adventure sports during the next 3 years. You'll be doing marketing, getting partners to give discounts, sales etc ... On top of that you might have to pivot to doing something only slightly related. OR for another example: you want to create a nutritional tool that will help people lose weight. You think it will be getting together great nutrtional content and showing it to users is a meaningful way but instead it could involve creating better image recognition of foods. Also as soon as you take money, your locked into the idea and need to see it through or your never going to work in this town again. Investors hate one thing more than anything else - low effort. I've just been through all this so I've finally reazlied that "passion" is VERY VERY VERY necessary. So in addition to all of the above requirements for an idea, it should also satisfy the following : "If I do this and it fails - I'll still be VERY HAPPY that I spent the last 2 years of my life doing this."
itmag 15y ago
Please post your ideas somewhere. It's good karma :) My ideas: http://ideashower.posterous.com http://ideashower.posterous.com

by staunch 15y ago

revorad 15y ago

What do you do when the expected value of long-term passion suddenly drops after schlepping for a year?

staunch 15y ago
Check whether you can reinvigorate your passion. What made you stop loving it? Did you get distracted from your original goal? Did you over-complicate it? Did someone else solve it better? Be brutally honest with yourself about what's preventing you from getting excited and fix that. If you find that you just fundamentally aren't excited about the problem them you owe it to yourself to move on as soon as is practical. Chalk it up as a life lesson and be more careful next time.
- revorad 15y ago
  I've been there once and I think the matter is very delicate. Sometimes, you have to push through a terrible lack of excitement. Knowing if it's one of those times is hard.
  - staunch 15y ago
    That's true. There's a big difference between an emotional slump that lasts a short time and a big drop in passion that seems permanent.
nollidge 15y ago
I'll be honest, this is probably the primary fear I have that's kept me from even attempting something in startup-land. Even if I have an idea (EDIT: or discover an existing startup) that I feel passionate about now, I have no idea how I'm going to feel in X months from now. My passions are fickle and manifold.

mattmaroon 15y ago

I thought about something like #8. It's a legitimate concern for sure. I just tend not to naturally come up with ideas that I wouldn't like working on. I don't feel I can judge very far in advance how much I'll like something 3 years down the line, and most startups are dead or evolved into something else by then anyway.

staunch 15y ago
My primary heuristic for finding startup ideas is coming across problems in my own daily life. As long as the problem exists, and I'm passionate about it, the only thing that will change is the solution. That's exactly why it's so dangerous to be passionate about solutions. There are other ways to come up with ideas, but for me the only thing interesting is solving problems I see with my own eyes. I know there are very good companies built in different ways though.
keeptrying 15y ago
The idea is very different from the work you'll be doing to implement it. So this #8("Expected Long-term Passion") is a REAL requirement. For example: you love adventure sports and want to create a marketplace for adventure sprots. The truth is you WILL NOT be doing any adventure sports during the next 3 years. You'll be doing marketing, getting partners to give discounts, sales etc ... On top of that you might have to pivot to doing something only slightly related. OR for another example: you want to create a nutritional tool that will help people lose weight. You think it will be getting together great nutrtional content and showing it to users is a meaningful way but instead it could involve creating better image recognition of foods. Also as soon as you take money, your locked into the idea and need to see it through or your never going to work in this town again. Investors hate one thing more than anything else - low effort. I've just been through all this so I've finally reazlied that "passion" is VERY VERY VERY necessary. So in addition to all of the above requirements for an idea, it should also satisfy the following : "If I do this and it fails - I'll still be VERY HAPPY that I spent the last 2 years of my life doing this."

itmag 15y ago

Please post your ideas somewhere. It's good karma :) My ideas: http://ideashower.posterous.com http://ideashower.posterous.com