Why "boring" ideas win.
Why "boring" ideas win.
Aron Meystedt
January 26, 2026
Hello! Aron here.
We measure what turns ideas into action at ValidatorAI.com
👬 Let’s connect on LinkedIn!
🤖 Drop this prompt into Base44 to instantly mockup your idea for FREE:
“I’m building [X] for [specific customer] who struggle with [specific problem]. My goal is to validate demand by collecting emails and pre-orders.”
All data below is from hundreds of thousands of entries into our:
Startup Idea Validation Tool and our New Business Idea Generator.
Boring ideas move (and our data explains why)
Founders who move forward tend to work on ideas that feel:
obvious
narrow
operational
unglamorous
In contrast, ideas framed around identity or vision stall far more often.
Our internal data, below, confirms this; unsexy ideas that focus on efficiency, operational pains and compliance are 2X as likely to turn into something than those built on “wouldn’t this be cool”. 👇
Efficiency / automation
█████████████████████████ 54%
Compliance / risk
██████████████████████ 46%
Operational / revenue pain
█████████████████ 41%
Aspirational / identity
██████████████ 27%
Based on live execution signals following validation at ValidatorAI.com
Translation:
The more boring the problem sounds, the more likely someone actually builds.
Why this happens (what the data suggests)
Ideas that move forward tend to have three things baked in:
A clear buyer that can be easily reached
A known pain, not a hypothetical one
A next step that’s obvious without a big leap or tech lift
Aspirational ideas usually require:
explaining the problem
convincing yourself it matters
inventing a customer
That extra cognitive load leads to delay.
External signals say the same thing
You see this everywhere:
Reddit is full of posts like:
“Everything feels like it’s been done already”
“I want something unique but practical”
Many well-known founders have said versions of:
“The idea sounded dumb at first.”
“It started as an internal tool.” (Slack)
“We didn’t think it was a startup.”
🔗 Paul Graham has written that the best startup ideas often look unimportant at first because they’re obvious to the people living with the problem.
Boring ideas feel familiar.
What this means for early founders
Most of us approach new startup ideas like this:
“What’s a great startup idea?”
“What would be exciting to build?”
🙂 Better questions are:
“Who already has this problem?”
“How often does it happen?”
“What are they doing today to work around it?”
👉 Clarity on problem and customer usually lead to inspiration and progress.
Why we built our Business Idea Generator this way
Our New Business Idea Generator starts with:
the customer
your personal advantage
the existing pain
Because our data keeps telling us the same thing:
👍 Ideas grounded in the above framework move forward more often!
😍 If you want to contribute to (and learn from) our dataset, try our:
Business Idea Generator or the Startup Idea Validation Tool.
Every run helps us understand what actually turns curiosity into companies.
Have a good week ahead.
👉 And please do try Base44.
It’s a great way to take a quick next step in your validation.
Aron Meystedt
Chief Data Nerd at ValidatorAI.com
👬 Let’s connect on LinkedIn!
PS: Did you know I’m a dork and I own the first .com ever registered on the Internet: Symbolics.com
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