How to Get and Evaluate Startup Ideas - Do you have founder market fit? - How big is the market? - Big now or small but rapidly growing - How acute is this problem? - It’s not a problem or it’s not a problem that people care about. - If the alternative to your solution is literally nothing then that’s great. - Do you have competition? - Most good startup ideas have good competition. - If going against entrenched competition, you generally need a new insight. - Do you or someone you know want this? - Did this only recently become possible or necessary? - New tech, regulatory change, new problem - That’s often what creates a new opportunity - Are there proxies for your business? - A large company that does something similar to your startup, but it’s not a direct competitor. - Is this is something you’d want to work on for years? - Often an idea grows on founders as it begins to work. - Is this a scalable business? - Software - yes - Services or anything with high skill human labor needed needs to be thought about deeply - Is this a good idea space? - One level of abstraction out from a particular startup idea. It’s a class of closely related startup ideas. - Infra monitoring tools, food delivery services etc. - Diff idea spaces have wildly different hit rates. In the last 10 years, fintech infra, vertical SaaS for enterprise had astonishingly high chances of becoming billion dollar companies. Consumer hardware and social networks were orders of magnitude lower. This changes over time. - Fivetran worked through an idea space multiple times before getting to the thing they actually succeeded Ideas that are hard to get started - Stripe. Thousands of developers knew this was a problem. Getting started was super difficult. Ideas that are boring - Gusto. Payroll software was left alone for a long time. Ideas that have existing competitors - Most good startup ideas have existing competitors. The reason there are no competitors is because no one wants the product. - A great situation is where there are existing competitors but you’ve noticed something they all seem to have missed, or they all suck. - What’s the unique insight? Dropbox realized the UX sucked with all existing ~20 competitors. Drew realized that if you could patch into the host operating system you could sync all the files automatically. That was the right insight. Generating organic startup ideas - Become an expert on something valuable. - Work at a startup. - Build things that you find interesting. Generating startup ideas forcefully - Start with what your team is especially good at and think of ideas that take advantage of your expertise. - Automatic founder market fit. - Rezi, open-door for rental apartments. Founders had worked in real estate and debt financing. When they got into YC they spent the first month looking for ideas. They only looked at the intersection of real estate and fintech. That’s a fertile space. - Start with a problem you’ve personally encountered, ideally one you’re in a unique position to see. - Vetcove. Dad was a vet and was using old school ways to order supplies. - Think of every job you’ve had (+ internships and life experiences). What problems did you come across that other people don’t know? - Think of things that you wish existed. - Order food from local restaurants. - Most likely to hit tarpit ideas. Is there a structural reason this doesn’t exist? - Look for things in the world that have changed recently that might have created a new opportunity. - The pandemic changed daily life. - Gathertown. Fun way to hang out with people online. - Variants of successful companies. - Nuvo cargo - flexport for latam. Large market, good proxies, even though he didn’t have domain expertise - Talk to people and ask them what problems they have - Find a fertile idea space and talk to people in the space. - AtoB founders literally went and talked to truck drivers at pit stops and talked to founders in the space. - Big industries that are broken - Find a cofounder with an idea lol
hello there brother, thank you for this summary. did you right all of this or did you use some sort AI (i am asking so i could boost my productivity) to help you because this was great
Summary: 3 Parts Common mistakes - just building that doesnt solve real problems (Solution in search of a Problem - SISP). - tarpit idea (existing ideas, not taking off - ex, task planner), - not evaluating the idea, picking first idea, etc - waiting for perfect idea on other side of spectrum - Paul - an idea is a good starting point If your idea good? - 10 key questions - founder/market fit? - good idea for team - how big is market? big now & small now, but rapidly growing - how acute is this problem? Ex. Brex - do u have competition? competition is good. - do you want this? do we know personally someone wanting this? - only recently possible or recently necessary? Ex.Checkr - r there good proxies for this business? (similar, not direct competitor) Ex. Rappi - is this an idea u want to work on for years? often, idea morphs, could also be boring. - is this a scalable business? - is this a good idea space? Ex. Fivetran 3 things that make idea seem bad, but actually make them good (most founders shy away) - schlep blindness. Ex. Stripe. Read Paul Graham's article. - hard to get started - boring space (Ex, payroll), boring doesn't matter as we grind, anyway - existing competitors (Ex, dropbox) - needs specific insight how to come up with new ideas? - made up idea possible, btu not best way. Organic is better. - long game - become expert, work at startup, just build things (thought not startup idea) - 7 recipes - start with team expertise, idea taking advantage of that expertise (Rezi)- interdomain advantage - start with problem encountered (Ex, Vetcove) - things you personally wish existsed (Ex, Doordash) - beware of tarpit - things that have changed recently Ex. Covid => gathertown - new variants of successful companies Ex. nuvo cargo - talk to people and ask what problems (first idea space), Ex. AtoB - big industries seem broken => right for disruption - find cofounder in yc No one knows for sure if good, so just launch and find out
Amazing that a resource like this is free. As someone who is looking into entrepreneurship after consulting, this has been helpful with trying to understand idea generation and evaluation.
All these questions are the keys to evaluate before start, sometimes founders anxiety to build the product are stronger than follow a framework or doing the right questions, I always work with founders on this points and the importance to answer all these questions before write the first line of code
That's right, getting in touch with an FA during the pandemic was how I was able to scale through the crazy stock downtrend and helped me stay in profit & save my finances.
Thank you for the video! In 2 aspects I got confused, could u please elaborate? 1) You recommend avoiding products that seem "fun" but then you recommend that if you are a programmer, you should code projects that you find interesting 2) In some moments you mention it is bad if the product doesn't have competitors because it means maybe people didn't want this solution, but then you mention that it is counter-intuitive but it is good having competitors
4 MOST COMMON MISTAKES: - Not Solving a Real Problem - Getting Stuck in a Tarpit Idea - Not Evaluating an Idea - Waiting for the Perfect Idea 10 KEY QUESTIONS TO ASK ABOUT A STARTUP: - Do you have Founder Market Fit? (pick a good idea for your team) - How big is the Market? - How accute is it problem? (does someone care about it?) - Do you have competition? (most good startup ideas have competition) - Do you want the product? - Did this recently become possible or necessary? - Are there good proxies for this business? (not a direct competitor) - Is this an idea you want to work for years? - Is this an scalable business? - Is this a good idea space? (with good future hit rate) 3 THINGS THAT MAKE YOUR STARTUP IDEA GOOD (although they might seem bad): - Ideas that are hard to get started (hard ideas usually imply oportunities just sitting there to be taken) - Ideas that are in a boring space (boring ideas have a much higher hit rate than fun ideas) - Ideas that have market competitors (specially good if they suck) HOW TO COME UP WITH STARTUP IDEAS: - Become an expert on something valuable - Work at a startup - Build things you find interesting 7 RECIPES FOR GENERATING STARTUP IDEAS: - Start with what your team is good at (authomatic Founder Market Fit) - Start with a problem you personally have encountered --> Look into your life and professional experiences for startup ideas - Think of things you personally wish existed (careful with tarpit ideas) - Look for things in the world that have changed recently - Look for new variants of successful companies - Talk to people and ask them what problems they have (potentially in fertile ideas spaces) - Look for big industries that look broken
Amazing that you’re sharing this. Thanks. It’s adorable how he grabbed the water and never drank. I would’ve waited for you to drink so that’s my idea for him. We’re even. :)
Is there anywhere we can learn about "idea spaces"? Has anyone put together a comprehensive list, and their hit rates? That would be an extremely interesting set of data to look at.
Your guys' explanation is so cool, I wish I had all the teachers explaining all the technical lessons with this pedagogical approach. The way he told Hmm! AI is cool what can I apply AI to.
This is amazing! Thank you for sharing. I'm a product designer, and while I am not looking for a start up idea right now, I think these principles are applicable at work as well. Thx!!!
I believe that meeting app problem can be solved by viewing the problem from a different point of view .. what I mean is if you have the app actually help the student or the user to manage his/her schedule in the first place .. then rearranging the schedule can be done to meet that event date .. so if I click on an event that will take place next Friday the app should rearrange my schedule of the whole week to meet my obligations and thus make space to attend the event ... The problem then would be only for the user to commit to his application by updating his/her daily commitments ... :-)
7 Recipes for generating startup ideas 1. Start with what your team is especially good at -> automatic founder market fit 2. Start with a problem personally encountered 1 & 2 -> 1. think of every job you've had. 2. What are problems or opportunities you've been in a special position to see? 3. Think of things you personally wish existed -> Doordash, but dangerous to be tarpit idea. 4. Look for things in the world that have changed recently -> c19 example 5. Look for new variants of successful companies -> Nuvocargo example 6. Talk to people and ask what problems they have -> requires a lot of skills. Pick a fertile idea space, and talk people in that idea space, not just to potential customers, but also to founders of companies in that idea space to get advice what ideas are actually worth pursuing. Gooe example is AtoB: Makes a fual cards for truck drivers, pivoted idea, and spent whole YC batch time to find a idea. 1. Picked an idea space. 2. Drove to truck stops and talked to potential users. 3. Asked other founders about the industry. 4. Evaluated several ideas before picking fuel cards. I'm willing to put my work since I am doing this for full-time. I go with 6. 7. Look for big industries that seem broken
The bad tarpit idea (3:16) and a good hard-to-get-started idea (15:14 ) seems pretty similar. Both are fairly obvious ideas that make you wonder why no one did it yet. Both are harder than expected.
Beyond fruitful. But it would be great to focus a bit more on people who don’t have expertise as they’re either young or still studying. Just like the founders in the Truck industry you mentioned. Detailed information and instructions would be really appreciated!
Quiz By "YouSum Live" 00:00:24 What is the main focus of this talk? 00:01:49 What is a common mistake founders make? 00:02:45 How should founders approach problem identification? 00:03:16 What are tar pit ideas? 00:07:44 Why is founder market fit important? 00:08:01 What is a good indicator of a startup's potential? 00:08:34 How can founders assess if their idea is good? 00:09:14 Why is competition not always a bad sign? 00:20:01 How can founders generate startup ideas organically? 00:20:22 What is a common pitfall when brainstorming ideas? 00:23:00 What should founders do if they lack domain expertise? 00:32:09 What is the best way to validate a startup idea? Quiz By "YouSum Live"
some proxies don't work due to differences in other geographies like 1) whoever thought uniqlo would do well in the US like in JP clearly didn't realize our clothing market is much more diversified with pricing accessible to everyone. (JP used to have limited options between expensive foreign imports and ultra-cheap street shop clothing with variable quality). 2) McD's trying to compete in SEA, where local tastes and ingredients were vastly different, local competition was at least as cheap, better tasting, and familiar
Let's say you have an idea, you believe it will solve a problem in the market. But you need additional data such as sending a survey or conducting some coffee chats with people to evaluate if this is a real pain point. Anybody who responds to the survey or comes to your coffee chats would in future not be able to claim any right to the success of your product in the future as they were simply providing early feedback. Is that understanding correct? Trying to see if it is necessary to get some kind of NDA or other doc signed by people who give feedback in early stages of the product ?
Are you guys at YC only tech, do you look at humanitarian products eg green energy solutions, or novel hardware for aerospace, industrial & domestic markets?
This this the single best presentation I have had on SaaS. The presentation and structure were well laid out. The content is amazing. Thank you very much.
00:11 Common mistakes with startup ideas 02:07 Fall in love with a high-quality problem to find a startup idea. 06:01 Founder market fit is crucial for a startup idea to succeed. 08:01 Evaluate the startup idea based on market size, problem acuteness, competition, personal interest, and recent changes. 12:16 Choosing a good idea space is crucial for startup success. 14:20 Picking a good idea space is crucial for finding startup ideas. 18:28 Dropbox saw opportunity in a crowded market 20:15 To generate organic startup ideas, become an expert on something valuable, work at a startup, or build things that interest you. 23:48 Vetcove founders noticed a problem in the old-fashioned way veterinarians order supplies and built a solution. 25:45 Think of things you personally wish existed 29:14 A to B founders became experts in the trucking industry by physically talking to truck drivers and other founders. 31:03 Finding startup ideas: anyone can do it, but it requires effort Crafted by Merlin AI.
How to systematically evaluate idea spaces? I imagine you didn't do industry analysis across the entire NAICS/GICS. You mentioned two criteria (big and not-disrupted), but how to evaluate "not-disrupted" enough? You mentioned finance has a higher success rate. How would you find the report or overview on this topic?
I have an intense curiosity in my idea space of interest. I have a personal problem I want to solve in it. I research ways in the space to solve that problem… that’s the way I did it
this is the most insightful material from your channel so far ! God bless that guy!!!! This speaker need to do the majority of upcoming material because of his ability to deliver his thoughts and key insights PERFECTLY!!!
I wish I had show this to my teammate at school at entrepreneurship projects, they were rejecting any idea that simply appear to exist in Google, or exclude anything that look boring
Chapters (Powered by ChapterMe) - 00:00 - Finding a promising idea 00:51 - Where does this advice come from? 01:44 - 4 most common mistakes 01:47 - Not a real problem 03:12 - Getting stuck on a tarpit idea 05:38 - Not evaluating an idea (or) Waiting for the perfect idea 06:29 - 10 key questions to ask about any startup idea 06:41 - Do you have founder/market fit? 07:59 - How big is the market? 08:31 - How acute is the problem? 09:12 - Do you have competition? 09:30 - Do you want this? 09:50 - Did this recently become possible or necessary? 10:46 - Are there good proxies for this business? 11:18 - Idea you'd want to work for years 11:55 - Is this a scalable business? 12:15 - Is this a good idea space? 14:40 - 3 things that make your startup idea good 15:14 - Hard to get started 16:25 - Boring space 17:59 - Existing competitors 19:42 - How to come up with startup ideas 21:25 - 7 recipes for generating startups ideas 21:40 - What your team good at 23:31 - Start with a problem you personally encountered 24:59 - Using recipes one and two 25:44 - Personally wish existed 26:22 - Things that have changed recently 28:08 - Talk to people and ask their problems 31:16 - Big industries that seem broken
I think there's a bit of confusion in the curriculum. The teacher says we need a skilled team to succeed, but one of the essays, 'Why Not to Start a Startup,' says even if we're inexperienced, we can still start one and recommends doing so.
I have a good idea that people face this problem everyday (and they get used to it :() But I lack skills and it takes me around 6 months to get the skills needed to built this startup. Unfortunately I've shared my idea with couple of coursmates. What should I do (1. Start project after 6 months hoping no one will steal my idea; 2. Start now, build project with programmers and share income with them?🤯)
Excellent video! The concepts are clearly explained and with examples. Anyone noticed that Jared is dressed like an engineer rather than an executive? Kind of resonant to some of the concepts mentioned here :)
I don't see why is a solution in search of a problem a mistake? I understand that the inverse process might be a clearer value proposition, but many valuable applications have started with a solution in search for a problem. Röntgen didn't set out to develop x-ray imaging to solve problems in medicine, neither did many tech companies that rode the internet wave, like Amazon or Meta.
Except they were. Meta and Amazon had specific problems they tackled at the start, they just expanded and morphed along with the internet wave. Amazon was an online book seller for small publishers and Meta was Zuckerberg’s attempt at meeting girls in his uni. You gotta have a good user base to start with.
Can anyone tell me if this idea is good enough: My idea is to get work experience without any job, The solution is simple you have to just replicate a work that has been already done and by using computer vision ai will analyse your work and grade your work comparing it to an expert work.
Honestly when I first found out about character AI I thought it would fail because I'm like who would talk to a robot when there's humans around? Boy was I wrong 😅
How to Get and Evaluate Startup Ideas
- Do you have founder market fit?
- How big is the market?
- Big now or small but rapidly growing
- How acute is this problem?
- It’s not a problem or it’s not a problem that people care about.
- If the alternative to your solution is literally nothing then that’s great.
- Do you have competition?
- Most good startup ideas have good competition.
- If going against entrenched competition, you generally need a new insight.
- Do you or someone you know want this?
- Did this only recently become possible or necessary?
- New tech, regulatory change, new problem
- That’s often what creates a new opportunity
- Are there proxies for your business?
- A large company that does something similar to your startup, but it’s not a direct competitor.
- Is this is something you’d want to work on for years?
- Often an idea grows on founders as it begins to work.
- Is this a scalable business?
- Software - yes
- Services or anything with high skill human labor needed needs to be thought about deeply
- Is this a good idea space?
- One level of abstraction out from a particular startup idea. It’s a class of closely related startup ideas.
- Infra monitoring tools, food delivery services etc.
- Diff idea spaces have wildly different hit rates. In the last 10 years, fintech infra, vertical SaaS for enterprise had astonishingly high chances of becoming billion dollar companies. Consumer hardware and social networks were orders of magnitude lower. This changes over time.
- Fivetran worked through an idea space multiple times before getting to the thing they actually succeeded
Ideas that are hard to get started
- Stripe. Thousands of developers knew this was a problem. Getting started was super difficult.
Ideas that are boring
- Gusto. Payroll software was left alone for a long time.
Ideas that have existing competitors
- Most good startup ideas have existing competitors. The reason there are no competitors is because no one wants the product.
- A great situation is where there are existing competitors but you’ve noticed something they all seem to have missed, or they all suck.
- What’s the unique insight? Dropbox realized the UX sucked with all existing ~20 competitors. Drew realized that if you could patch into the host operating system you could sync all the files automatically. That was the right insight.
Generating organic startup ideas
- Become an expert on something valuable.
- Work at a startup.
- Build things that you find interesting.
Generating startup ideas forcefully
- Start with what your team is especially good at and think of ideas that take advantage of your expertise.
- Automatic founder market fit.
- Rezi, open-door for rental apartments. Founders had worked in real estate and debt financing. When they got into YC they spent the first month looking for ideas. They only looked at the intersection of real estate and fintech. That’s a fertile space.
- Start with a problem you’ve personally encountered, ideally one you’re in a unique position to see.
- Vetcove. Dad was a vet and was using old school ways to order supplies.
- Think of every job you’ve had (+ internships and life experiences). What problems did you come across that other people don’t know?
- Think of things that you wish existed.
- Order food from local restaurants.
- Most likely to hit tarpit ideas. Is there a structural reason this doesn’t exist?
- Look for things in the world that have changed recently that might have created a new opportunity.
- The pandemic changed daily life.
- Gathertown. Fun way to hang out with people online.
- Variants of successful companies.
- Nuvo cargo - flexport for latam. Large market, good proxies, even though he didn’t have domain expertise
- Talk to people and ask them what problems they have
- Find a fertile idea space and talk to people in the space.
- AtoB founders literally went and talked to truck drivers at pit stops and talked to founders in the space.
- Big industries that are broken
- Find a cofounder with an idea lol
hello there brother, thank you for this summary. did you right all of this or did you use some sort AI (i am asking so i could boost my productivity) to help you because this was great
@@tahamian4822all manual, otherwise I won’t retain anything 😅
Thank you so so much ❤
❤
Bless you brother
Him picking up the bottle and not drinking somehow triggered me so hard
Apart from that, great video
Me too, I don't know why
It’s an idea I see a problem in that 😂😂
The moment you realise the guy is high on a cocktail of psychedelics and amphetamines 👀
@@jolima you might be onto something here, he barely blinks...
I am so glad I am not the only one who that disturbed😑
I am so grateful for getting access to these high quality content! Thank you all!
Summary:
3 Parts
Common mistakes
- just building that doesnt solve real problems (Solution in search of a Problem - SISP).
- tarpit idea (existing ideas, not taking off - ex, task planner),
- not evaluating the idea, picking first idea, etc
- waiting for perfect idea on other side of spectrum
- Paul - an idea is a good starting point
If your idea good?
- 10 key questions
- founder/market fit? - good idea for team
- how big is market? big now & small now, but rapidly growing
- how acute is this problem? Ex. Brex
- do u have competition? competition is good.
- do you want this? do we know personally someone wanting this?
- only recently possible or recently necessary? Ex.Checkr
- r there good proxies for this business? (similar, not direct competitor) Ex. Rappi
- is this an idea u want to work on for years? often, idea morphs, could also be boring.
- is this a scalable business?
- is this a good idea space? Ex. Fivetran
3 things that make idea seem bad, but actually make them good (most founders shy away)
- schlep blindness. Ex. Stripe. Read Paul Graham's article.
- hard to get started
- boring space (Ex, payroll), boring doesn't matter as we grind, anyway
- existing competitors (Ex, dropbox) - needs specific insight
how to come up with new ideas?
- made up idea possible, btu not best way. Organic is better.
- long game - become expert, work at startup, just build things (thought not startup idea)
- 7 recipes
- start with team expertise, idea taking advantage of that expertise (Rezi)- interdomain advantage
- start with problem encountered (Ex, Vetcove)
- things you personally wish existsed (Ex, Doordash) - beware of tarpit
- things that have changed recently Ex. Covid => gathertown
- new variants of successful companies Ex. nuvo cargo
- talk to people and ask what problems (first idea space), Ex. AtoB
- big industries seem broken => right for disruption
- find cofounder in yc
No one knows for sure if good, so just launch and find out
Thanks!
Invaluable! 🙏
who asked
thanks
Thanks!
Amazing that a resource like this is free. As someone who is looking into entrepreneurship after consulting, this has been helpful with trying to understand idea generation and evaluation.
hey you worked into consultancy industry
All these questions are the keys to evaluate before start, sometimes founders anxiety to build the product are stronger than follow a framework or doing the right questions, I always work with founders on this points and the importance to answer all these questions before write the first line of code
Great course. I got an idea on how to market myself startup while taking this course. Bunch of thanks YC and Jared.
That's right, getting in touch with an FA during the pandemic was how I was able to scale through the crazy stock downtrend and helped me stay in profit & save my finances.
Thank you for the video! In 2 aspects I got confused, could u please elaborate?
1) You recommend avoiding products that seem "fun" but then you recommend that if you are a programmer, you should code projects that you find interesting
2) In some moments you mention it is bad if the product doesn't have competitors because it means maybe people didn't want this solution, but then you mention that it is counter-intuitive but it is good having competitors
simply and importantly, 3 points as below,
1,what's the problem
2,how big is the market
3,can you do it?solve the problem
17:10 Come on Jared - I was waiting for you to drink... and you did nothing 🤷♂- Ahhhhh SO FRUSTRATED 😡!
yeah man same.
It's crazy how we felt the same way .
Thank God I thought I was the only one
Hahaha this made laugh
This is life changing advice! Keep up the good work YC!
This Video is more worth than a Whole book on this topic
4 MOST COMMON MISTAKES:
- Not Solving a Real Problem
- Getting Stuck in a Tarpit Idea
- Not Evaluating an Idea
- Waiting for the Perfect Idea
10 KEY QUESTIONS TO ASK ABOUT A STARTUP:
- Do you have Founder Market Fit? (pick a good idea for your team)
- How big is the Market?
- How accute is it problem? (does someone care about it?)
- Do you have competition? (most good startup ideas have competition)
- Do you want the product?
- Did this recently become possible or necessary?
- Are there good proxies for this business? (not a direct competitor)
- Is this an idea you want to work for years?
- Is this an scalable business?
- Is this a good idea space? (with good future hit rate)
3 THINGS THAT MAKE YOUR STARTUP IDEA GOOD (although they might seem bad):
- Ideas that are hard to get started (hard ideas usually imply oportunities just sitting there to be taken)
- Ideas that are in a boring space (boring ideas have a much higher hit rate than fun ideas)
- Ideas that have market competitors (specially good if they suck)
HOW TO COME UP WITH STARTUP IDEAS:
- Become an expert on something valuable
- Work at a startup
- Build things you find interesting
7 RECIPES FOR GENERATING STARTUP IDEAS:
- Start with what your team is good at (authomatic Founder Market Fit)
- Start with a problem you personally have encountered
--> Look into your life and professional experiences for startup ideas
- Think of things you personally wish existed (careful with tarpit ideas)
- Look for things in the world that have changed recently
- Look for new variants of successful companies
- Talk to people and ask them what problems they have (potentially in fertile ideas spaces)
- Look for big industries that look broken
😊
Amazing that you’re sharing this. Thanks. It’s adorable how he grabbed the water and never drank. I would’ve waited for you to drink so that’s my idea for him. We’re even. :)
One of the best videos EVER about this topic, and I have seen a lot...
Thank you Mr. Friedman for the very insightful speech.
Is there anywhere we can learn about "idea spaces"? Has anyone put together a comprehensive list, and their hit rates? That would be an extremely interesting set of data to look at.
Your guys' explanation is so cool, I wish I had all the teachers explaining all the technical lessons with this pedagogical approach.
The way he told Hmm! AI is cool what can I apply AI to.
18:30 Good point!
If not that many people are using it
and the competition sucks,
then that could be a good area to look into
Agreed 💯
I really want to start a business. Thanks for this video! Need all the advice I can get
This is amazing! Thank you for sharing. I'm a product designer, and while I am not looking for a start up idea right now, I think these principles are applicable at work as well. Thx!!!
Hello! Anyone in need of a project manager and a academic writer to inbox me. Referrals will be greatly appreciated.
I really appreciate it. Really helpful and insightful video. Thanks a lot to everyone who has an effort on this video.
I believe that meeting app problem can be solved by viewing the problem from a different point of view .. what I mean is if you have the app actually help the student or the user to manage his/her schedule in the first place .. then rearranging the schedule can be done to meet that event date .. so if I click on an event that will take place next Friday the app should rearrange my schedule of the whole week to meet my obligations and thus make space to attend the event ...
The problem then would be only for the user to commit to his application by updating his/her daily commitments ... :-)
how many ideas were rejected by YC but actually succeding?
Good Ideas
1. Hard problem
2. Boring space
3. Existing competitors
this is phenomenal.straight hit.Insha Allah i will be pitching at YC in the near future..
I don’t ever comment on videos, but this was fantastic. Tons of lightbulb moments while watching this. Thank you
This YC channel is amazing stuff. The best I have found anywhere.
7 Recipes for generating startup ideas
1. Start with what your team is especially good at -> automatic founder market fit
2. Start with a problem personally encountered
1 & 2 -> 1. think of every job you've had. 2. What are problems or opportunities you've been in a special position to see?
3. Think of things you personally wish existed -> Doordash, but dangerous to be tarpit idea.
4. Look for things in the world that have changed recently -> c19 example
5. Look for new variants of successful companies -> Nuvocargo example
6. Talk to people and ask what problems they have -> requires a lot of skills. Pick a fertile idea space, and talk people in that idea space, not just to potential customers, but also to founders of companies in that idea space to get advice what ideas are actually worth pursuing. Gooe example is AtoB: Makes a fual cards for truck drivers, pivoted idea, and spent whole YC batch time to find a idea. 1. Picked an idea space. 2. Drove to truck stops and talked to potential users. 3. Asked other founders about the industry. 4. Evaluated several ideas before picking fuel cards.
I'm willing to put my work since I am doing this for full-time. I go with 6.
7. Look for big industries that seem broken
This is probably the most helpful video I have ever seen on youtube
This really is an amazing channel for me as a UX designer.
The bad tarpit idea (3:16) and a good hard-to-get-started idea (15:14 ) seems pretty similar.
Both are fairly obvious ideas that make you wonder why no one did it yet.
Both are harder than expected.
Beyond fruitful.
But it would be great to focus a bit more on people who don’t have expertise as they’re either young or still studying.
Just like the founders in the Truck industry you mentioned.
Detailed information and instructions would be really appreciated!
Tarpid ideas can also work if you have relevant connections and a rough idea of how you can execute them.
Quiz By "YouSum Live"
00:00:24 What is the main focus of this talk?
00:01:49 What is a common mistake founders make?
00:02:45 How should founders approach problem identification?
00:03:16 What are tar pit ideas?
00:07:44 Why is founder market fit important?
00:08:01 What is a good indicator of a startup's potential?
00:08:34 How can founders assess if their idea is good?
00:09:14 Why is competition not always a bad sign?
00:20:01 How can founders generate startup ideas organically?
00:20:22 What is a common pitfall when brainstorming ideas?
00:23:00 What should founders do if they lack domain expertise?
00:32:09 What is the best way to validate a startup idea?
Quiz By "YouSum Live"
This guy is awesome, where can we see more of him?
Outstanding video, thanks. The Tarpit concept is a great warning!
Awesome. Ideas that take advantage of your expertise
I will research and stand on my square.I respect the accelerator. Problem solving.If I come to you it will be correct.
Thank you ! you gave me lots of helps. Really worthy video to invest the time.
some proxies don't work due to differences in other geographies like 1) whoever thought uniqlo would do well in the US like in JP clearly didn't realize our clothing market is much more diversified with pricing accessible to everyone. (JP used to have limited options between expensive foreign imports and ultra-cheap street shop clothing with variable quality). 2) McD's trying to compete in SEA, where local tastes and ingredients were vastly different, local competition was at least as cheap, better tasting, and familiar
Let's say you have an idea, you believe it will solve a problem in the market. But you need additional data such as sending a survey or conducting some coffee chats with people to evaluate if this is a real pain point.
Anybody who responds to the survey or comes to your coffee chats would in future not be able to claim any right to the success of your product in the future as they were simply providing early feedback. Is that understanding correct?
Trying to see if it is necessary to get some kind of NDA or other doc signed by people who give feedback in early stages of the product ?
QUESTIONS FOR THE AUDIENCE
Would you like to have a simple "startup ideas" evaluator framework for better evaluating and comparing startup ideas?
Sure!
I have tons of ideas, it would be interesting if I would have a better way to evaluate which ideas should I start working on.
This sounds interesting.
OMG the way he teased drinking that bottle of water at 17 min was performance art. magical.
Just a great video. totally practical. totally grounded and totally based on experience. Thanks!!
So practical and encouraging. I got down a lot of notes.
Are you guys at YC only tech, do you look at humanitarian products eg green energy solutions, or novel hardware for aerospace, industrial & domestic markets?
An awesome talk. It is inspirational to see folks interested in seeding "founders" in the audience.
This this the single best presentation I have had on SaaS. The presentation and structure were well laid out. The content is amazing. Thank you very much.
Thank you for creating the video - likes Unequivocally !!!!
maybe do a video of solving founder/market fit Thx
00:11 Common mistakes with startup ideas
02:07 Fall in love with a high-quality problem to find a startup idea.
06:01 Founder market fit is crucial for a startup idea to succeed.
08:01 Evaluate the startup idea based on market size, problem acuteness, competition, personal interest, and recent changes.
12:16 Choosing a good idea space is crucial for startup success.
14:20 Picking a good idea space is crucial for finding startup ideas.
18:28 Dropbox saw opportunity in a crowded market
20:15 To generate organic startup ideas, become an expert on something valuable, work at a startup, or build things that interest you.
23:48 Vetcove founders noticed a problem in the old-fashioned way veterinarians order supplies and built a solution.
25:45 Think of things you personally wish existed
29:14 A to B founders became experts in the trucking industry by physically talking to truck drivers and other founders.
31:03 Finding startup ideas: anyone can do it, but it requires effort
Crafted by Merlin AI.
Pure gold. It is somehow not the same like the people teach in university. Maybe it is because of teacher but That is very cool.
Sometimes localized problems that are relevant to a niche (with big market share) and specific to your country.
This content is magnificent, It’s Ivy League quality from people who are in the trenches.
How to systematically evaluate idea spaces? I imagine you didn't do industry analysis across the entire NAICS/GICS. You mentioned two criteria (big and not-disrupted), but how to evaluate "not-disrupted" enough? You mentioned finance has a higher success rate. How would you find the report or overview on this topic?
I have an intense curiosity in my idea space of interest. I have a personal problem I want to solve in it. I research ways in the space to solve that problem… that’s the way I did it
this is the most insightful material from your channel so far ! God bless that guy!!!! This speaker need to do the majority of upcoming material because of his ability to deliver his thoughts and key insights PERFECTLY!!!
practical to the point- LOVE IT
This was extremely informative and inspirational. Thank you so much! Going to find my co-founder now!
I wish I had show this to my teammate at school at entrepreneurship projects, they were rejecting any idea that simply appear to exist in Google, or exclude anything that look boring
Is this advice sound for consumer startups as well?
Chapters (Powered by ChapterMe) -
00:00 - Finding a promising idea
00:51 - Where does this advice come from?
01:44 - 4 most common mistakes
01:47 - Not a real problem
03:12 - Getting stuck on a tarpit idea
05:38 - Not evaluating an idea (or) Waiting for the perfect idea
06:29 - 10 key questions to ask about any startup idea
06:41 - Do you have founder/market fit?
07:59 - How big is the market?
08:31 - How acute is the problem?
09:12 - Do you have competition?
09:30 - Do you want this?
09:50 - Did this recently become possible or necessary?
10:46 - Are there good proxies for this business?
11:18 - Idea you'd want to work for years
11:55 - Is this a scalable business?
12:15 - Is this a good idea space?
14:40 - 3 things that make your startup idea good
15:14 - Hard to get started
16:25 - Boring space
17:59 - Existing competitors
19:42 - How to come up with startup ideas
21:25 - 7 recipes for generating startups ideas
21:40 - What your team good at
23:31 - Start with a problem you personally encountered
24:59 - Using recipes one and two
25:44 - Personally wish existed
26:22 - Things that have changed recently
28:08 - Talk to people and ask their problems
31:16 - Big industries that seem broken
You're really useful, robot.
Good bot, have a snack
You forgot about the:
17:10 - Water drinking try
wonderful chapters 🍵👍
WHICH BOT BRO ?
Its harder to find a problem than actually solving one.
Nah, there's many.
Wow one of the best startup videos ever
Just launch it and found out
We've been taking shots every time he says the work "Sucked". I see two of every word I'm typing and I'm shitfaced...
Hello! Anyone in need of a project manager and a academic writer to inbox me. Referrals will be greatly appreciated.
Real YC student right here
@@xavierterminello175😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊q😊
Excellent video with very useful tips, Thank you!
This is gold, thank you for sharing these resources!
Really great video, I've learnt a lot, Thank you.
I think there's a bit of confusion in the curriculum. The teacher says we need a skilled team to succeed, but one of the essays, 'Why Not to Start a Startup,' says even if we're inexperienced, we can still start one and recommends doing so.
Thank you! This video is the inspiration i needed.
I have a good idea that people face this problem everyday (and they get used to it :()
But I lack skills and it takes me around 6 months to get the skills needed to built this startup.
Unfortunately I've shared my idea with couple of coursmates.
What should I do (1. Start project after 6 months hoping no one will steal my idea;
2. Start now, build project with programmers and share income with them?🤯)
Woah! Let's hear more from this guy!
This is golden. Thanks for this. I hope to make good use of this info's.
Omg … when you didn’t drink … killed me
I fill really thirsty because of this
How is this possible, looks too good to be true
Excellent video! The concepts are clearly explained and with examples. Anyone noticed that Jared is dressed like an engineer rather than an executive? Kind of resonant to some of the concepts mentioned here :)
Can I pitch to Y-Combinator from outside the United States?
If you know the answer, please drop the answer In your comment. I will appreciate it.
Yes
Jared is the best, such great advice and insight!
amazing as usual.
This is extremely helpful. Thank you, YC
thank u so much for sharing this valuable tips with us!!
Insanely inspiring advice. Thank you!!!
I don't see why is a solution in search of a problem a mistake? I understand that the inverse process might be a clearer value proposition, but many valuable applications have started with a solution in search for a problem. Röntgen didn't set out to develop x-ray imaging to solve problems in medicine, neither did many tech companies that rode the internet wave, like Amazon or Meta.
Except they were. Meta and Amazon had specific problems they tackled at the start, they just expanded and morphed along with the internet wave. Amazon was an online book seller for small publishers and Meta was Zuckerberg’s attempt at meeting girls in his uni. You gotta have a good user base to start with.
It is a very helpful video. It helped me to find three very good ideas. Thank you, man.
Can anyone tell me if this idea is good enough:
My idea is to get work experience without any job,
The solution is simple you have to just replicate a work that has been already done and by using computer vision ai will analyse your work and grade your work comparing it to an expert work.
Such an insightful talk. Thanks Jared
Helpful video, but I think that passed a certain number of variables it just becomes post hoc rationalization.
Best channel on youtube
You are amazing thank you for sharing. We will make this our innovation intake process!
Thanks, Jared! Really practical and useful piece of information.
Thank you, Jared. Glad to get new useful video with advise. Will try to apply it to my new idea.
Thanks, from Ukraine 🇺🇦
Honestly when I first found out about character AI I thought it would fail because I'm like who would talk to a robot when there's humans around? Boy was I wrong 😅
Thanks for the tips! Much appreciated
Jared, great share. Thank you
You have to be patient. You can right product what if customers to do not want it.
17:06 This water bottle scene is the best part
Extremely helpful. Thank you
Pure Gold.
A really insightful video!
This is just incredible. Thank you!