How to come up with great startup ideas

By Teboho Khauoe

Coming up with a great startup idea can prove to be challenging, and to make matters worse, the best startup ideas sound really stupid in the beginning according to Paul Graham Co-founder of the world's most powerful startup incubator Y-combinator.

They have helped companies like Dropbox, Airbnb, Zenefits and 10 other companies reach over the 50 billion dollar mark.

So then, how do you come up with a great startup idea? Well, here are a few quick tips.

Rule number 1:

Never try to imaginatively think up ideas, don’t try to come up with ideas at all.

The truth is, customers won't buy your product or service because it's a great idea.

So then, what do customers buy

Rule number 2:

Customers buy solutions to their problems and needs that are underserved. Come up with a great solution to an existing problem, and people will be willing to spend their money on you even before you have the product. And that's when you know you have come up with a truly great idea.

How do you practically come up with these great ideas?

The answer to that would be to think about your own personal pain points, these may be problems you may be facing and day to day things that frustrate you.

Ask yourself, what are your own underserved needs. Think about what takes longer than it should, what's too expensive, what is a real inconvenience you experience, etc.

The second way is to think about what other people may be going through and what their pain points are.  

If you come from a community with a shortage of resources, Or any place with underserved needs, you will be in a great place to come up with ideas that will improve the quality of life in that community, by focusing on some of the pain points unique to those communities. 

A great example of this is Thato Kgatlhanye who made School bags out of recycled plastics for children in poverty-stricken communities. 

She saw that many children would walk kilometers to school using plastic bags to carry their books. Furthermore, they struggled to do their homework under candlelight each night.

So she developed a durable bag, ironically made out of recycled plastic bags. She managed to give these kids bags, keep the environment clean and employ community members before she turned 21.

The bags also came with solar lamps that are charged each day as the kids walked to school. All her efforts are paid for and sponsored by corporates and businesses.

Always have in mind that the reason why you do this exercise of listing problems instead of coming up with ideas of your own imagination is because people don’t buy products. They buy solutions to problems. And if it's a great solution, they will buy really quickly and tell everyone they know. You want customers to fight over being first in your pre-orders waiting list.

Having more than one idea is not only great but it's a must.

The journey of an entrepreneur is about coming up with an idea and seeing if people will buy into it. If not, then you need to be able to change some of the components of that idea to better suit your potential customer or jump to the next idea really quickly to see if there is a need for it.

That brings us to...

Rule number 3:

Never try to hard-sell your solution, rather listen to customer feedback and hear what they like and dislike about the solution.

Take the negative feedback as an opportunity to tweak and make changes. If you can get this part right, then you are already on your way to success.

Perhaps the next great idea will come from you. If you come up with a great idea and need advice and free learning resources that will help you along your journey, send me an email at teboho@ignitor.co.za.

I would love to hear from you.