Bad and Plausible Sounding
Graham: The way to get startup ideas is not to try to think of startup ideas. If you make a conscious effort to think of startup ideas, 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. Yahoo, Google, Facebook, and Apple all got started this way. None of these companies were even supposed to be companies at first. They were all just side projects.
If you try to think of startup ideas, you'll think of 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.
Y Combinator itself is something I only did because it seemed interesting.
Learn about things that matter. Work on problems that interest you. With people you respect.
Live in the Future
Graham: If you think of technology as something spreading like a fractal stain, every point on the edge that's moving represents an interesting problem. One guaranteed way to turn your mind into the type that startup ideas form in unconsciously is to get yourself to the leading edge of some technology.
As Paul Buchheit put it — live in the future. When you get there, ideas that seem uncannily prescient to other people will seem obvious to you.
Live in the future. Ideas that seem prescient to others will seem obvious to you.
Just Learn
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 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. The ultimate advice for young would-be startup founders, reduced to two words: just learn.
Domain expertise is what matters. Larry Page was an expert on search because he was genuinely interested.