Hey, Aron here.
Have you asked yourself: “How do people come up with good startup ideas?”

Every week it seems like someone comes out of nowhere with an idea that investors are racing to fund. We hear about the Mark Zuckerberg’s of the world who had an amazing idea, acted on it and built immediate success. But, for every Mark Zuckerberg, there are dozens of founders that used their lived experience to create something better.

The founders of Bumble, Starbucks, Shopify, Spanx, Airbnb, Slack and countless other companies all filled a need they were very familiar with. Tobias Lutke built Shopify because he hated every e-commerce platform while trying to sell snowboards. That’s lived experience.

Let me explain how our data backs up this founder-first approach.

We prefer to see our founders use what you know and the places you’re familiar with to find business opportunities you can launch.
 

Why do we start with your personal expertise? Because our data tell us this:

• Weak founder proximity is the main cause of idea stalling

• Unclear distribution is the number one misalignment signal

• Only 36% of our founders can name a specific customer

• Founders that are solving a problem they have personally experienced move forward at double the rate of those without that lived experience

The problem is, we’re all starting in the wrong place.
We’re starting with the idea, instead of our own experiences. Every step in the startup process is easier when you start closest to the market and people that you know. When you start there, you know who the customer is, where to find them and what problems they have. Just look at the failure points listed above. They are all solved when you start with the market you know best.

How to come up with good startup ideas:

Startup Idea Generator

• Start with your industry, your background, and your existing advantages, generate 10 ideas, launch the one that fits you the best.
  

This time around, start with you… not the idea, not the grand vision, but what you know and who you know. This solves the cold start problem because the next step is easier when you’re in close contact with customers already. Because our data shows that an unclear next step is a root cause of startup failure.

Good luck!

Aron Meystedt
Chief Data Nerd - ValidatorAI

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