What is the first thing you do after you get an idea?

Extensive research on forums & communities to see if anyone is searching for the problem and solution. If there are some users willing to pay, it's a good signal. It also means that you've found the first batch of customer, say the 1st 10 customers.

If there are existing solutions, they proves that the market is already there. The question becomes how to differentiate with other players. How big is the market? Can I find 500 customers?

My target is always finding 500 - 1,000 customers, each pays me $15 - $50 / m. Good enough for a solopreneur like me.

If there is not a single thread, I would ask why is it happening? Is the problem already solved with some simple tricks?

Maybe first make sure you write out the problem you are solving, talk to at least 3 people that have that problem (to avoid bias) and explore the problem. Ask questions and assumptions you have so when you start building the MVP its not so blurry.
Its all about reducing risk in the beginning - the risk of you spending time on something that isn't going to help your target customer.

Buy a domain.

I usually do a quick research in google trends to get understanding is that a thing.

Also buy a domain

But lately, mostly by influence of @arvidkahl, I shifted to thinking first: do I have access to right audience for the idea and do I understand it at all

That cut a lot of "cool" ideas that maybe someone need whom I can never reach

So, now I split ideas in two categories:

• I need that - like my personal automation framework (I am audience)
• My current audience need that - like current clients of my company whom I worked with for years

And cut everything besides that

I sketch it out on https://excalidraw.com/ then do number crunching and check what is going on in the market related to the idea. I try to get very very specific on the jobs to be done and the problem the product would solve.

Here's my favourite recipe:

• Start with a setting launch date 12 weeks from now. Working with 2 people? Make it 6 weeks.
• Cut features. If you have competitors aim to launch with 20 - 40% of what they have.
• Don't cut on design. Make it look professional. Build a brand.
• Stop listening to what everyone is saying. You're in charge. Yes that will mean you will make mistakes and people will say 'I told you so'. Stop listening. Start learning from your mistakes.
• Celebrate the milestones. Finished the landing page? Go out for beers.
• Build. Build like a maniac. Like John O'Nolan, the founder of Ghost, said on getting to 200K MRR: The 'one weird trick' was showing up every day for 7+ years, even when the graph was totally flat :)

Write it down
get a look at it after a few days and check if still makes sense
the hype make me less objective

Talk to people. The natural instinct is to keep it secret so no one will "steal it". Ideas are a dime a dozen. No one is going to steal yours and you are almost guaranteed to fail if you don't talk to people about it before building it.

When I talk to people, I am looking for:

• Have they experienced the problem my idea solves? Ask them for specific examples (not just yes or no).
• What is their current work around for the problem? If they don't have a work around, the problem probably isn't painful enough for them to pay for my solution.
• How is my solution better than the common work arounds? How is it worse?

After that, if I feel like it's worth pursuing I like to use Sketch and Invision to create a rough working prototype (assuming it's software but you could build a rough physical prototype if it's not). I'll then show it to some of the people I talked to. I won't ... WON'T ... ask them IF they would use it. People are bad at predicting the future and are also prone to just say yes because they are nice. Instead, go back to the experience they shared with you and have them walk you through using the prototype to solve that problem. You'll get better, more candid feedback that way. Make some iterations of the prototype based on what you're learning. Pull everything out except for the most essential pieces and build an MVP! (this is super over simplified but you get the point!)

Put it on my Trello board and forget about it.

I go to sheet.new and make a google sheet.

Assuming I'm working on something else, I write it down. Once I'm done working on my current project, I take a look at all the ideas I've written, and see which once I still like. I also try to combine some ideas together, if it sounds like it would work.

The next step would be to experiment with the idea a bit, see if in real life it is as fun as in my mind.

Maybe spend 10 hours just doing some exploratory work/prototyping and sketching out the idea and building some basic functionality. Once you have more clarity about it you can decide to spend additional time on it.

First thing I do when I get an idea is buy a domain name... which is not the way to go.

Then the real first thing is to talk to my friends about the problem the idea is trying to solve. Generally speaking at that stage I realise it's not really a problem worth solving or I do not have direct access to the target audience.

Sometimes I just ignore what the conversations yield because I want to build it, just for fun, not as part of a business. I then start building the prototype and time box it (2 weeks or 1 month generally).

If after talking to my friends it's still a viable idea and I have access to the target audience, I reach out to the target audience and find their current processeses around solving the problem.

I would highly recommend reading The Mom Test, it's a great book on how to conduct customer and user interviews and it's a great resource for validating ideas.

It's more of ask the next questions first
"bussiness model canvas" is a good model to get what's important.

Focusing on "who is it for?" "how valuable is it really from that users POV?"
Non emotional as you can, how much gain would a user get? how much would he spend to get that gain?

Cause it's very easy at least for me to come up with cool things, of little value or of hard to monetise value - things people aren't used to pay for.

Than my next filter is nowadays size of project.
And scoping it down.
If you think initially your project is 1 year it would be a 3-5 year project most likely.
That's way too long.
Can you think of something that's 2-4 weeks long? (that would actually take 2-3 months)

There are even projects people make that are <=24 hours ...
After dev there is actually making a business out of it...

i free-write about it and/or put it into a lean canvas just to knock out the main components in one place

I add an entry on my ideas database in Notion, and write a brain dump about anything related to it: problem, solution, market, competitors, existing tech that can be used for it, etc. In the process of doing the brain dump, I end up doing a bunch of research to figure out that information.

Sometimes I start writing code after that, just to try to get to a proof of concept. That helps get a better idea of some of the challenges, or sometimes, to get a feel if the concept will actually be useful, or if it's just hype.

Whenever I get an idea, I just write it in my digital notepad, with some details about how it should work and never think about it again.

Sometimes, if an idea feels really good after having it in the notepad for some time, I start to think more about it and decide to implement it. Being a programmer, I usually think about the technical problems that I could encounter and try to find a solution for them. Once I mentally know how everything should work I will start implementing an MVP, by directly coding (as I already have the mental model).

This works well because I usually work alone, but for a team I would probably have to write down and discuss the entire model of the MVP before we would start implementing it.

Start writing down the specifics since you are not yet 100% sure of the details. You could first do it yourself and then talk to 2-3 of your friends / users that could use your product and change accordingly. Second, buy a domain, then work on a MVP, if you are a coder do it yourself, if not try to find one. No one wants to join? No problem (hopefully), try to build it on a no code website, or maybe do something really small via a dev. shop and then find a CTO or maybe a CTO advisor and hire a a part time full stack developer.
Now that you have launched, there are a million things you need to do, but that's not your question, so let's leave it to that.
Good luck!

Imagine 1 millions ways why it wouldn't work and then get right back to reading.

I rarely get a new idea. I had one on 1st April. This is what I did.

1. 1st April - Got idea
2. 2nd April - Called a meeting with some of https://techcelerate.ventures/members
3. 7th April - went live with a product
4. 30th July - closed down and handed over all the money we made to charity
5. 1st Aug - soft-launched the commercial model as https://skilledup.life

I'm building a two-sided market place. On one side, anyone can gain new experiences. On the other side, tech companies can now find volunteers to help them progress.

I might not get another idea for few more years.

I personally have a set of questions I go through: https://melbado.com/blog/questions-to-evaluate-your-startup-idea

My process for new ideas and built to work for when you are sober or had a great night ;)

Day 0: Get Idea
Day 1: Ask myself do i still like the idea? Hmm yeah.
Day 2: Still like it? Tell the wife about it. Hipshot feedback
Day 7: Still like it? Tell a good friend who is in the space of the idea (whatsapp)
Day 8-30: Still thinking about it? Tell my colleagues during a lunch session
Day 31-60: Still thinking about it randomly? Write about it on a doc.
Day 90: Did like turn into love? Yes? DO IT!

My most recent idea That just hit day 60+. Tinder 4 Github Repos :) OSS project that may come to a repository near you before christmas.