Stop Trying
Graham: The way to get startup ideas is not to try to think of startup ideas. If you make a conscious effort, you will think of ideas that are not only bad but bad and plausible sounding — meaning you and everybody else will be fooled by them. You'll waste a lot of time before realizing they're no good.
The way to come up with good startup ideas is to take a step back. Turn your brain into the type that has startup ideas unconsciously.
Don't try to think of startup ideas. You'll get ideas that are bad and plausible sounding.
Three Things
Graham: How do you turn your mind into the kind that has startup ideas unconsciously? One — learn a lot about things that matter. Two — work on problems that interest you. Three — with people you like and respect. That third part, incidentally, is how you get co-founders at the same time as the idea.
My life is full of case after case where I worked on things just because I was interested, and they turned out to be useful later. Y Combinator itself is something I only did because it seemed interesting.
Learn about things that matter. Work on interesting problems. With people you respect.
Domain Expertise Is What Matters
Graham: The component of entrepreneurship — I can never quite say that word with a straight face — that really matters is domain expertise. Larry Page is Larry Page because he was an expert on search. And the way he became an expert on search was because he was genuinely interested in it. Not because of some ulterior motive.
At its best, starting a startup is merely an ulterior motive for curiosity. You'll do it best if you introduce the ulterior motive at the end of the process.
Larry Page became an expert on search because he was genuinely interested. Not some ulterior motive.
Two Words
Graham: The optimal thing to do in college if you want to be a successful startup founder is not some new vocational version of college focused on entrepreneurship. It's the classic version — education for its own sake. Learn powerful things. If you have genuine intellectual curiosity, that's what you'll naturally tend to do.
The ultimate advice for young would-be startup founders, reduced to two words: just learn.
The ultimate advice for young founders, reduced to two words: just learn.