Ask HN: How do I find a good startup idea?
2 by homedepotdave | 3 comments on Hacker News.
If you're like me, you've wasted hours searching online for startup ideas. You've read dozens of 'Top 30 startup ideas for 2021' articles which all say vaguely that 'crypto' and 'fintech' are ideas you should pursue. Maybe you've perused r/Startup_Ideas but were overwhelmed by random people's musings about dog social networks. You've likely read pg's essays on the topic, but trying to be open-minded while observing the world around you so far hasn't led you to any amazing breakthroughs. And maybe you've bought some domain names and half-built an idea or two, only to realize it wasn't a good enough idea to be worth spending more time on. Building something for your own use and then realizing its broader commercial opportunity worked well for Slack, Plaid and I'm sure many others. But I haven't had that luck yet (call it what you will). Another way I've seen work -- at least for building relatively successful companies, if not industry-shattering unicorns -- is to start by solving 1 specific problem for 1 person willing to pay for it. I believe corporate America has thousands of problems that new tech startups could solve well, but there's a big information gap. Today, you don't just have to have the skills to solve a problem -- which many of us do -- you also have to be lucky enough to be in a position to know the problem even exists. I don't know what to do, and it's frustrating. I'd love people's thoughts on this.