Four common mistakes

Not solving a real problem
- Do the users really care about?
- Is it a solution in search of problem (SISP)?
  - AI is cool, where I can apply it to, find a problem to solve with AI - SISP
  - Superficial problem, not real problem
<aside> ⚡ Are we in love with the problem?
- Find high quality problem </aside>
Getting stuck on a ‘tarpit idea’
- Some ideas make sense but founders get stuck
- Widespread problem founders encounter and it seems like it could be easily solved but it’s an illusion
- There’s a structural reason why it’s actually very difficult to solve
- Ideas which are a lot harder than they seem
<aside> ⚡ Google the startup idea and see who’s worked in the past and why it failed, talk to the founders

</aside>
Not evaluating an idea
Waiting for the perfect startup idea
- Think of initial idea as a good starting point

How to know if idea is good

Do you have a good founder-market fit?
How big is the market?
How acute (strong) is this problem?
Do you have competition?
- If we don’t have competition, it isn’t good
Do you want this personally?
Did this recently become possible or necessary?
- Technology, regulation, new opportunity
Are there good proxies for the business?
- Are there good examples where this was made possible?
Is this an idea you want to work for years?
- Good but often it grows as it starts to work
- Some startup ideas are in boring spaces
Is this a scalable business?
Is this a good idea space?
- Idea space - one level of abstraction up from the startup idea; a class of closely related startup ideas
- e.g. social networks area is an extremely high competition space
Ideas hard to get started
- Required cornered resource, sophisticated technology etc.
Boring space
- Boring ideas have a lot higher rate of success
- Fun ideas are still about doing the same things every day, excitement worns off
Existing competitors
- Most good ideas have competitors
- Need to see what they missed