The paradox of choice
I basically know I want to be an IH. I work FT currently and I want to break away from it. I have a ton of ideas but I'm really not sure which one I should run with/ which one would actually be worth building out. Since time is limited for me working FT, I really want to figure this out before I waste time getting started on a dud. Anyone have advice on how to get "unstuck" or figure out a good way to get the ball rolling?
Thanks for the tips all!
I did an exercise with my co-founder somewhat recently where we started with a couple dozen ideas we had, and we ranked them along two axes - how excited we personally were about the idea/problem, and how promising we felt it was in general (i.e. how likely did we feel it was to succeed if someone good at startups gave it their best shot). We then plotted the ideas on a 2D chart, and it quickly became clear which ones we should throw out immediately, and which ones merited further consideration. I think we had something like 3 rise to the top, and we did some initial testing for two of them before settling on one.
If you have too many ideas, you need to weed some of them out and then prioritize.
Weeding out, throw the ones away that:
As for validation, think about who your target customers are for the products that are left. Think about the problem that you are solving and maybe even ask some people if it is a valid problem. Happy to help with that.
By now you should have a pretty small set of ideas left. Now prioritize according to:
If you have a hard time on one of the parts, I'm happy to help.
One way to look at this dilemma is to lay out all your ideas on paper and then ask yourself one question:
Which of these ideas, if worked, could have the maximum positive impact on people's lives in the future and how many people could it affect?
This not only narrows your focus but whatever you chose, you will have an added sense of meaning to your work.
All the best.