How to Get Startup Ideas
For a discussion in a learning community group, I was reading Paul Graham’s How to Get Startup Ideas written 6 years ago. It is still super-relevant and very fresh. Here are my notes interlinking lessons from other great minds:
Market/Product Fit:
“The most common mistake startups make is to solve problems no one has.”
“Why do so many founders build things no one wants? Because they begin by trying to think of startup ideas. That m.o. is doubly dangerous: it doesn’t merely yield few good ideas; it yields bad ideas that sound plausible enough to fool you into working on them.”
We don’t build a product and then find a market for it. Its always the other way.
Product Market Fit (PMF) is a very common thing to measure the traction and growth. But still is a wrong notion as it emphasises on the product first. Brian Balfour says that it is always market that comes first and its better we rephrase it as Market/Product fit (MPF).
Marc Andreessen and Andy Rachleff, the original proponents of the PMF, also mean the emphasis is on market but they have somehow coined it as product/market fit:
When a great team meets a lousy market, market wins.
When a lousy team meets a great market, market wins.
When a great team meets a great market, something special happens.
Go Small to Go Big:
People put on the “sexy idea” filter, “revolutionary product” filter when evaluating the initial ideas. But the emphasis in the early stages should be on building things which are needed for a small segment of people. Even though it is counter intuitive, it is better to focus on a small number of people initially:
“you can either build something a large number of people want a small amount, or something a small number of people want a large amount. Choose the latter. Not all ideas of that type are good startup ideas, but nearly all good startup ideas are of that type.”
Kevin Kelly says in his influential essay:
“To make a living as a craftsperson, photographer, musician, designer, author, animator, app maker, entrepreneur, or inventor you need only thousands of true fans.”
Eric Ries’ lean startup and Steve Blank’s customer development processes gives frameworks and methodologies to focus on this initial true fans. You build a scrappy prototype and put it out to get feedback, before polishing it.
Live in the Future and Build What Seems Interesting:
“how do you choose between ideas? The truth is disappointing but interesting: if you’re the right sort of person, you have the right sort of hunches. If you’re at the leading edge of a field that’s changing fast, when you have a hunch that something is worth doing, you’re more likely to be right.”
If I had read this passage few years ago, I would have said this is batshit-crazy. But that is in fact very true. Jeff Bezos in one of his epic annual letters says this:
“Good inventors and designers deeply understand their customer. They spend tremendous energy developing that intuition. They study and understand many anecdotes rather than only the averages you’ll find on surveys. They live with the design. A remarkable customer experience starts with heart, intuition, curiosity, play, guts, taste.”
Market/Founder Fit:
Alright, I get it. The market trumps all else. How do I live in the future? This is where I find the lesson from PG that is very being blunt and to the point:
“the way to have good startup ideas is to become the sort of person who has them.”
This resonates well with the point from another huge master, Charlie Munger. When asked : “How to find a good spouse?”, Charlie’s answer was “Be worthy of a good spouse”. First you become a good spouse, and then you can deserve one.
A little more actionable insights comes from Chris Dixon:
“It is easy to think that because you like food you can create a better restaurant. It is an entirely different matter to rent and build a space, market your restaurant, manage inventory, inspire your staff, and do all the other difficult things it takes to create a successful restaurant. Similarly, just because you can imagine a website you’d like to use, doesn’t mean you have founder/market fit with the consumer internet market.”
The option he suggests is:
“No one is born with knowledge of the education market, online advertising, or clean energy technologies. You can learn about these markets by building test projects, working at relevant companies, or simply doing extensive research. I have a friend who decided to work in the magazine industry. He discovered some massive inefficiencies and built a very successful technology company that addressed them”
How to Take an Online Course Effectively?
In a freakish but fortunate accident, I came across a podcast episode titled, “How To Take A Course (And Actually Get Your Money’s Worth)”. I am currently taking an online course on writing, so I was mildly curious.
But it turned out to be a damn good thing. I had an epiphany and a major takeaway from this episode. Let me try to summarise them:
- Set an intention. Set a curriculum.
- Give yourself permission to be on a curriculum at your own pace.
- Success is not watching every video or completing every worksheet.
- Define your own success and actively chase that in the course.
- There is a price, and there is a value of a course. Do not confuse both.
I do the same with non-fiction books. I don’t fret over the partially read or abandoned books in my Kindle. Yes, $10 is a big price for a book. But if there is one single idea that I can take away from it, it is really worth it. When I am in need of the topic, I can always jump in and learn more. Life is too precious to slog through some unenjoyable book. While reading, it is always better to chase than search for effective retention.
I can apply the same logic to a course. No one is going to write on my tombstone that I completed watching all the videos and completed all the worksheets of a course. With a lot more attention and active learning mode, I may be able to get my dollars’ worth of learning by watching only videos that are really important to me at this point in time. I don’t need to be guilty of not waking up in the morning and attending the lecture (when I can do the same in a relaxed and active way by listening to the recorded one). The dollars spent on a course are high compared to a book. But my attention, pace of learning and value I get have no relationship with the money. Disassociating money and sunk-cost fallacy with an online course is extremely liberating.
In that spirit, listen to this podcast episode; after 28 minutes, the last 15 minutes of the episode is enough to get the gist and the value 😁
5 Years From Now
This is another assignment which is quite fun. It is also a meaningful exercise to know the expected outcome of the writing course. Many others had taken a creative approach in detailing out on how exactly their life changes and tried to describe it. I am not a fan of such prediction, as I know for sure that I cannot predict what happens in the next 2 months.
So this exercise is challenging in knowing what is the desirable outcome/impact on my life because of this course.
The original prompt for this assignment was:
“What does your future look like 5 years from now if you have developed and sustained a writing practice?”
We were encouraged to be as specific as possible. I wrestled a bit and gathered myself to the following:
This is how I am, 5 years from, having developed a sustained writing skill.
Writing is a form of thinking and learning in public. I distil my learning in words. It is a meditation to keep myself grounded. Through this, I am able to connect with like-minded people
I write regularly and publish 1 essay every week.
I feel the butterflies in my stomach when pressing publish, I am always excited to hear feedback to uncover my blindspots and biases.
I write about my topics of interests like learning, building products, selling products, fitness and investing. I want to use my blog to reflect my current state of mind and a snapshot of my learning.
I have written 200+ essays, 700+ short public journal entries, 200+ newsletter issues have been sent.
My readers include curious people interested in learning, people from various sub-cults sharing my worldview. My writing has been read and shared by people like Tyler Cowen, Paul Graham, Patrick Collison.
I strive less for timelessness in my essays, but I balance by ship things consistently at a good quality.
I bump into people with shared values and like-minded folks with whom I may work in interesting projects. I am invited to many meet-ups, IRL events and forum on the topics of my interests.
I increase my optionality and serendipity by putting my writing out in public. I have enabled a lot of people to accomplish their goals by sharing my learnings through writing. Many people now stand on the shoulders of knowledge and leapfrog in their careers.
I really invite the 200 Word a Day mafia to think and write on how does your life will be, assuming that you have a 5-year streak at 200WaD. What does it really do to your life? How does this impact you personally and professionally?
My 12-Favorite Problems (2019 Edition)
This is my first week into the online course, Write of Passage. It was quite fun to see a lot of familiar people know through Twitter and blogs in the class. I had already taken course Building A Second Brain, a couple of years ago from the course creator.
As part of the assignment in the week, I am warming up with drafting the 12-favorite problems exercise.
You have to keep a dozen of your favorite problems constantly present in your mind, although by and large, they will lay in a dormant state. Every time you hear or read a new trick or a new result, test it against each of your twelve problems to see whether it helps. Every once in a while there will be a hit, and people will say, ’How did he do it? He must be a genius! - Richard Feynman
This sounds like a simple exercise. In the end, it is very simple. It is a bit time consuming to collect yourselves and think what are all the key questions that matter for you at this point of time in your life.
Here are my 12 questions:
How do I ask better questions (to customers, colleagues, family) to get the best answers?
How to learn the core principles of any topic and develop intuition, to lead a good life and work better?
How do I keep my flywheel (reading-> writing-> learning-> reading) run efficiently and consistently?
How do I improve my writing skills?
How can I be bold in marketing and distributing my ideas to a wider & right audience?
How do I build products that customers love, make their lives better and run a sustainable business through that?
How do I build a team of inspiring people with shared values and long term vision?
How to improve my focus and mindfulness by calming my monkey mind?
Do I listen to my body, brain and ego? How to keep them primed for peak performance?
How can I be part of in the scene to improve my optionality, serendipity?
What should I be mindful in inculcating curiosity and long-lasting values in my son?
How can I bring joy and meaningfulness in the lives of people I love?
What are all the key questions/challenges that interest you at this point in your life?
Online Writing Inspiration
I enrolled for an online course on writing organized by Tiago Forte and David Perell, which is starting from tomorrow. I will definitely write a detailed post on what I am trying to learn from this course and why I feel this is the right time (as opposed to my strategy of focussing on distribution rather the focusing to improve the content in an earlier post).
As part of the preparation for the course which is happening for the next 30 days, I wanted to take stock of the people who have influenced me. More accurately, whom I really want to be (in the future, if possible, blah blah qualifiers included 😊).
This was a tricky task because as an infovore, I read a lot. (It is another story that I store, rather hoard, a lot of articles in Instapaper queues and Kindle books which never will get empty 😜). I took a look at my Twitter following and categorized them based on the following criteria:
They should have written a long-form article (more than 500 words), I have really enjoyed reading. (Mandatory)
I would have read at least 4 long-form articles of them in the past 3 years. (Mandatory)
They are not professional writers or journalists (Flexible)
The actual list and on what topic I really like about them is here in my Evernote. (As the next step, I will narrow down the list to be precise as well as diverse for inspiration.)
Here is the list of people that I have collected (only the names as I could not copy a table from Evernote into 200WaD. For the detailed list, check here):
- Alex Danco
- Ben Thompson
- Mike Dariano
- Tren Griffin
- John Cutler
- Morgan Housel
- Andrew Chen
- Brian Balfour
- Rob Fitzpatrick
- Taylor Pearson
- Scott Young
- Ellen Chisa
- Erik Torenberg
- Michael Pollan
- Tyler Cowen
- Steven Johnson
- Julie Zhuo
- Justin Jackson
- Kevin Kwok
- Eugene Wei
- DHH & Jason Fried
- Kevin Kelly
- Chris Dixon
- Ben Evans
- Mark Suster
- Kara Swisher
- Steven Sinofsky
- Gabriel Weinburg
- Jana Vembunarayan
- Paul Graham
- Vishal Khandelwal
- Karin Taliga
- Tim Urban
- Samanth Subramanian
- Hiten Shah
- Tiago Forte
- David Perell
Epiphany in a Cricket Match
I am writing this after a week of watching a cricket match at a stadium. I wanted to measure myself if it is just an after-match euphoria or is it an epiphany.
Quick context. I travelled to a nearby city, Bangalore, to watch a cricket match in Indian Premier League between two arch rivals, Chennai Super Kings and Royal Challengers Bangalore. It was a family summer vacation trip combined with my son’s recent obsession with cricket. It is summer holidays time, and he spends all the time playing cricket under the scorching sun of Chennai.
Bangalore is a city that is very close to my heart and brings a lot of fond memories, as I spent a decade of my life there. The Chinnaswamy stadium in Bangalore is really pleasant and fantastically nice.
After watching a few overs of a match in the stadium, I realise that television amplifies and messes up the whole experience of watching a match. In the stadium, you can see the players who are doing the superhuman-like feats on TV are people like you and me. Some are short, some are plumpy, and some are sloppy too. It is just that their heroic acts of athletic feats are something possible with disciplined practice and training.
Another thing that I realised was simplicity. At the end of the day, cricket is just a game where a bowler throws a ball at a batter to get them out, and the batter defends it. There are a few basics of the game and laws of physics that needs to be in the players’ mind. It is all common sense after that. But our sports broadcasters can hype the hell out it, with minute analysis-paralysis and expert commentary. I couldn’t stop myself from comparing it with running a business. The goal of a business is to get a customer’s job done and make money in a sustainable manner. But many times we forget the big picture and zoom in with a microscope. It may be gross or beautiful, but it is important we realise the depth we are in to appreciate it.
Watching the match with a polarizing set of a crowd is a surreal experience. There are strangers sitting near rooting for your team and cheering for your heroes. When the match is nail-bitingly close and thrilling, to high-five with them or scream along, is a really cathartic and intoxicatingly high experience.