Paul Graham on How to Get Startup Ideas, Quoted

Paul Graham's answer to how to get startup ideas is that you shouldn't try to think of them. In his November 2012 essay How to Get Startup Ideas he writes: "The way to get startup ideas is not to try to think of startup ideas. It's to look for problems, preferably problems you have yourself."

This post walks through the essay's main arguments in Graham's own words. Each quote links to the original essay.

What do good startup ideas have in common?

Graham names three traits in the essay's second paragraph:

"The very best startup ideas tend to have three things in common: they're something the founders themselves want, that they themselves can build, and that few others realize are worth doing."

He lists Microsoft, Apple, Yahoo, Google and Facebook as companies that "all began this way".

Why is thinking up ideas a mistake?

Because it produces ideas that sound good and aren't. Graham calls the most common mistake startups make "to solve problems no one has", and admits he made it himself in 1995 with a company to put art galleries online.

Trying to think up ideas, he argues, "doesn't merely yield few good ideas; it yields bad ideas that sound plausible enough to fool you into working on them." At YC, he writes, these are called "made-up" or "sitcom" startup ideas. His example is a social network for pet owners: friends with pets say they could see using it, but "Sum that reaction across the entire population, and you have zero users."

What does it mean for an idea to be a well?

Graham describes a trade-off every new startup faces:

"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."

He pictures companies as holes, with Google as "an immense crater". A startup can dig a hole "that's broad but shallow, or one that's narrow and deep, like a well." Nearly all good startup ideas, he writes, are of the second type. Microsoft's Altair Basic and Facebook's Harvard-only first site are his examples.

He gives founders a test to apply:

"When you have an idea for a startup, ask yourself: who wants this right now? Who wants this so much that they'll use it even when it's a crappy version one made by a two-person startup they've never heard of? If you can't answer that, the idea is probably bad."

A well isn't enough on its own. Graham notes that Facebook "was a good idea because it started with a small market there was a fast path out of."

How do you become someone who has good ideas?

Graham's answer is to be at the leading edge of a fast-changing field. He combines a line from Paul Buchheit, that such people "live in the future", with a passage from Robert Pirsig, and arrives at:

"Live in the future, then build what's missing."

He describes good ideas as the result of "some external stimulus hitting a prepared mind", and says the right verb for startup ideas is "notice", not "think up". Ideas that grow out of founders' own experience are what YC calls "organic" startup ideas.

Which filters should you turn off?

Graham names several. One is asking too early whether an idea could become a big company: "There's plenty of time to apply that test later."

The other two are the unsexy filter and the schlep filter. The schlep filter is the habit of avoiding tedious, messy problems. His example is Stripe: thousands of programmers knew how painful payments were, "But when they looked for startup ideas they didn't see this one, because unconsciously they shrank from having to deal with payments." He argues that turning off the schlep filter matters more, "because the schlep filter is more likely to be an illusion."

What if you need an idea now?

The essay's later sections offer "tricks for coming up with startup ideas on demand", while saying the organic method works better. They include looking in areas where you have expertise and starting with things you need. They also include a question from your previous job: "Why doesn't someone make x? If someone made x we'd buy it in a second."

Graham calls these recipes "plan B". The essay ends on the line it builds toward:

"Live in the future and build what seems interesting. Strange as it sounds, that's the real recipe."

The short version

• Don't try to think up ideas. Look for problems, ideally your own.
• Prefer something a few people want a lot over something many people want a little.
• Ask who wants this right now, badly enough to use a crappy first version.
• Be at the leading edge of something, and notice what's missing.
• Don't avoid schleps; they hide good ideas.

This post reports what Paul Graham wrote in one essay. To look up what he, Warren Buffett, Sam Altman, Marc Andreessen or Naval wrote on your own question, you can ask Mímir. Each answer cites the original essay or letter.