How We Generated 150 Startup Ideas in 7 days (and you can too!) 💡

Do you ever feel like you're stuck in a rut? That your creativity is at an all-time low? Coming up with ideas can be frustrating. Believe me, I've been there - staring at a blank page all day, waiting for the muse to strike. That’s why I want to share the 5-step-process that worked for me.

I've had ideas for as long as I can remember. In fact, I started writing them down in my "idea list" when I was just 15 years old. But there have been times when I've gone months without a single spark of inspiration.

Through my journey with Indie Hackers, YCombinator, and other communities, I've learned that the first thing you should think about is problems, not solutions. Even better, your own problems. So my idea list became a problem list. Sometimes they came in dreams, sometimes in inspiring discussions, but I never had a specific goal in mind. It was just fun for me.

But what if you're under a deadline?

That's exactly what my co-founder and I faced when we quit our full-time jobs and needed to come up with something new fast after our first project failed. We set ourselves a goal: 7 days to find a new idea. And we did it! Let me walk you through the steps that worked for us:

1. Build a Community List
Start by listing all the communities you're active in as well as any experiences you've had. Think about things like going to the gym, specific tea you love, or even helping friends move, running a marathon etc. Divide them into personal and professional categories to keep things organised. Don't worry about ideas yet!

2. Identify Three Problems Each
For each item on your list, identify at 1-3 problems. Focus on problems, not solutions. This can be a challenging step because it's an interesting way to think about personal experiences. Don’t worry about ideas yet! Once you're done, your list should look something like this:

Problem List

3. NOW Worry About Ideas
Consider how these problems are currently being solved and how you tackled them. The more expensive and the more time-consuming it was for you, the better. Keep in mind that your competition isn't the latest tech startup; it’s the status quo. Also, don't worry if your idea already exists - in fact, if it doesn't, there may be a reason for that. Remember, your idea doesn't have to be fully fleshed out; a basic concept can be a great starting point.

4. Add Personal Filters To Prioritize The Ideas
Next, apply personal filters to prioritize your ideas. We used (1) Founder Fit, (2) whether the idea can be bootstrapped, and (3) our level of enthusiasm. Use high/medium/low or numerical rankings to organize your list. The choice is yours really, that’s why they are personal filters. Your list should look like this:

Problem-Solution-List

5. Select The Idea That Excites You The Most
Finally, select the idea that excites you the most. Ask yourself: will I be still motivated to work on this in 3, 5 even 7 years? If the answer is no, cut it. Make sure it aligns with your personal goals and values, e. g. whether you want to work remotely or on-site. We spent two days on this step due to our excitement and the number of ideas we generated.

The great thing about this process is that you are solving your own problems, or a problem you know exists. At the end of the process, we had 150 ideas with a total of 60 communities and experiences. We started working on a privacy-focused mobile analytics alternative to Mixpanel called Lumin - and we are super excited about it.

If you're still hungry for more ideas on how to generate, refine, and execute on your startup ideas, there's a whole world of resources out there to explore. We've read plenty of them! Here are a few that we found particularly helpful:

(We don’t get anything for recommending these.)

Generating ideas isn't about finding the perfect solution right away. It's about exploring problems and letting your creativity run wild.

How did you find your idea? 💡