How to choose your startup idea | tech crunch
0 likes219 views
The document provides advice on choosing a startup idea. It recommends targeting a small current market that will likely grow into a big market in the future. It also suggests looking for problems where people are already trying imperfect solutions, or observing strange user behaviors, as these likely indicate real pain points or opportunities. The advice is aimed at attendees of Y Combinator's Startup School event, to help them identify promising startup ideas.
How to choose your startup idea | tech crunch
- 1. How To Choose Your Startup Idea | TechCrunch http://techcrunch.com/2012/10/19/how-to-choose-your-startup... How To Choose Your Startup Idea GREG MCADOO posted 2 hours ago Editor’s note: This is a guest post by Greg McAdoo (http://www.crunchbase.com/person/greg-mcadoo) , Airbnb board member, partner at Sequoia Capital, and Sequoia’s lead on their partnership with Y Combinator. Sequoia is an investor in Airbnb, Cue, Dropbox, Stripe, Weebly and Y Combinator and was an early backer of PayPal. Tomorrow hundreds will meet up for Startup School (http://startupschool.org/) , YC’s annual event for gutsy hackers thinking about founding a company. It’s one of my favorite events, and this year’s attendees will get to hear from everyone from Mark Zuckerberg to Stripe’s Patrick Collison to Weebly’s David Rusenko. It’s oversubscribed again, so here are some thoughts on how to choose an idea for your startup for those who can’t make it. Investors always tell you to pursue big ideas, find your passion and iterate rapidly.That’s valuable advice, but there are some other important considerations that you don’t hear very often: tackle a small market, look for bizarre behavior, don’t make waves, and be unwilling to do anything else. Paul Graham also has some helpful suggestions here (http://www.paulgraham.com/ideas.html) and here (http://www.paulgraham.com /organic.html) . 1. Tackle a small market. Most people tell you to address a large market. But what you really want is a small market today that will be big tomorrow. If it’s too big now the incumbents will come in too early and crush you; if it’s too small tomorrow then you’ll never build anything of enduring value. So go for a small market today where something is changing to make it a big market tomorrow. Like GitHub, which is serving the software development market, but is well positioned to expand into other large markets like developer recruiting, PaaS, analytics, content management and more. Make sure you’re very clear in your own mind what the change is — it’s the only thing that keeps you warm at night when things look grim. 2. Look for bizarre behavior. You’ll know it’s the right problem because others are desperately trying to solve it. If there’s acute pain, people will be hacking shortcuts and cobbling together workarounds. Long before your wonderful solution there will be 10-20 imperfect ones. That’s a strong signal. Another one is strange behavior. Drew Houston asked why people were always emailing large files to themselves. Patrick Collison asked why accepting a credit card on the web was so hard. Daniel Gross asked why he had to check six different apps to find out what his day looked like. For similar reasons, beware of an issue that no one’s tackling — superficially it may sound like an opportunity but it’s more likely a dead end. Also, don’t just create businesses to serve yourself: many students think starting something that caters to students is a great idea. Sometimes it is, often it’s not. 1 sur 2 20/10/12 01:51
- 2. How To Choose Your Startup Idea | TechCrunch http://techcrunch.com/2012/10/19/how-to-choose-your-startup... 2 sur 2 20/10/12 01:51