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image image Before the Startup - Coggle Diagram

- - - - GENUINELY LIKE
- - - - making something people want.
- - - - CONSCIOUS EFFORTS
      - SIDE PROJECTS
        
        great ideas tend to be such outliers
      - Ok, so how do you turn your mind into the type that startup ideas form in unconsciously? (1) Learn a lot about things that matter, then (2) work on problems that interest you (3) with people you like and respect. The third part, incidentally, is how you get cofounders at the same time as the idea.
      - So if you can't predict whether there's a path out of an idea, 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.
        
        USER
        
        PUSHING FIELD
        
        Being at the leading edge of a field doesn't mean you have to be one of the people pushing it forward. You can also be at the leading edge as a user
      - Live in the future, then build what's missing.
      - some external stimulus hitting a prepared mind
        
        Bill Gates and Paul Allen hear about the Altair and think "I bet we could write a Basic interpreter for it."
        
        Drew Houston realizes he's forgotten his USB stick and thinks "I really need to make my files live online."
      - The verb you want to be using with respect to startup ideas is not "think up" but "notice."
        
        At YC we call ideas that grow naturally out of the founders' own experiences "organic" startup ideas. The most successful startups almost all begin this way.
      - If you're not at the leading edge of some rapidly changing field, you can get to one. For example, anyone reasonably smart can probably get to an edge of programming (e.g. building mobile apps) in a year. Since a successful startup will consume at least 3-5 years of your life, a year's preparation would be a reasonable investment. Especially if you're also looking for a cofounder.
        
        to learn programming to be at the leading edge of a domain that's changing fast. Other domains change fast.