Unique ideas seem bad #startups #podcast
Dalton (host), Michael (host)
In this episode of Dalton + Michael, featuring Dalton and Michael, Unique ideas seem bad #startups #podcast explores great startup ideas often look bad before they look inevitable Trying to find an idea that is both good and completely unprecedented is an unrealistic ideation filter because billions of people have already explored many possibilities.
Great startup ideas often look bad before they look inevitable
Trying to find an idea that is both good and completely unprecedented is an unrealistic ideation filter because billions of people have already explored many possibilities.
A practical path to originality is to revisit ideas that many people have considered and rejected, then understand whether the rejection reasons can be overcome.
Friends-and-family validation can be a misleading signal in early ideation; strong ideas often sound controversial or even worrying to close observers.
Examples like Instacart and Airbnb illustrate that high-potential startups can initially appear like “bad ideas” to most people.
Another way to escape consensus is to choose problems that are genuinely hard and take a long time, since most founders self-select into shorter, easier timelines.
Key Takeaways
Don’t optimize for “good and never-before-thought-of.”
The combination is a harsh filter that can push you into fantasy ideas rather than workable opportunities, because many plausible ideas have already been explored by others.
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Look for ideas that were rejected—and learn why.
If an idea has been discarded, it usually has a known failure mode; your job is to see whether conditions have changed or you have a new approach that neutralizes that reason.
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Treat “my friends think it’s great” as a weak ideation signal.
In this framing, social approval correlates with consensus, and consensus correlates with crowdedness; early-stage advantage often comes from non-obviousness, not immediate likability.
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Worry and controversy can be a positive indicator.
If smart people around you are concerned or think it’s a bad idea, it may indicate you’ve moved away from the default playbook—where many breakout companies begin.
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Use time-horizon as a contrarian lever.
Many founders mentally rewrite “10-year problems” into “2-year plans,” filtering out ambitious ideas; deliberately exploring ideas that truly take longer can reduce competition and increase differentiation.
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Hard things can be a shortcut to uniqueness.
Difficulty itself creates distance from consensus, because fewer people are willing to commit to long, intimidating execution paths—leaving more room for outlier outcomes.
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Notable Quotes
“If your ideation process is to find an idea that is both good and no one's ever thought of it before, you're gonna have a bad time.”
— Dalton
“Instead of trying to find something no one's ever thought of, find something that everyone's thought of and thinks is bad.”
— Dalton
“One of the things that I see a lot of people do... is talk to their friends and look for things that all of their friends think are good ideas.”
— Michael
“The many successful YC companies, every one of their friends and family members thought the idea was bad.”
— Michael
“If you wanna cheat, just imagine ideas that might take longer than two years to work.”
— Michael
Questions Answered in This Episode
What are concrete examples of “discarded ideas” that became viable because of a changed assumption (tech, regulation, behavior)?
Trying to find an idea that is both good and completely unprecedented is an unrealistic ideation filter because billions of people have already explored many possibilities.
Get the full analysis with uListen AI
How do you distinguish a “good controversial idea” from an idea that’s simply bad for fundamental reasons?
A practical path to originality is to revisit ideas that many people have considered and rejected, then understand whether the rejection reasons can be overcome.
Get the full analysis with uListen AI
What specific questions should you ask people to uncover the real reason they think an idea is bad (cost, trust, market size, timing, execution difficulty)?
Friends-and-family validation can be a misleading signal in early ideation; strong ideas often sound controversial or even worrying to close observers.
Get the full analysis with uListen AI
Instacart and Airbnb initially sounded bad—what were the core objections, and what design choices overcame them?
Examples like Instacart and Airbnb illustrate that high-potential startups can initially appear like “bad ideas” to most people.
Get the full analysis with uListen AI
How can founders avoid the trap of seeking validation while still getting useful early feedback?
Another way to escape consensus is to choose problems that are genuinely hard and take a long time, since most founders self-select into shorter, easier timelines.
Get the full analysis with uListen AI
Transcript Preview
Everyone has a filter for startup ideas, and because we have very similar filters, if, if your, if your ideation process is to find an idea that is both good and no one's ever thought of it before, you're gonna have a bad time.
[laughs]
You're trying to discover something that no one has ever thought of before.
Yeah.
And there's a lot of people in the world. I don't know if you heard, Michael.
Yes, yes.
There's billions of them, and so most likely what you actually need to do is to find an idea that has already been discarded by others, and it's been discarded for some reason. Do you get what I'm trying to say? Like-
Yes
... like instead of trying to find something no one's ever thought of, find something that everyone's thought of and thinks is bad.
Yes. Classic examples of that, Instacart would be maybe a very classic example.
Yep.
One of the things that I see a lot of people do when they're in this kind of ideation stage is talk to their friends and look for things that all of their friends think are good ideas.
Yep.
And I might advise the exact opposite in this situation. Like, what happens if you talk to your friends and, like, you got maybe not universal bad, but like-
What if they told you-
... controversial.
Yeah, what if they're like, "Look, I'm worried about you"? [laughs]
[laughs]
If that, if you explain your idea [laughs] Isn't that, isn't that what happened with the founders of Airbnb, Michael?
I mean, I think-
Is that the story?
It's... I would say this.
Like, their parents were worried about them. [laughs]
The many successful YC companies, every one of their friends and family members thought the idea was bad. We keep on saying the way you get a unique idea is is you have to move away from consensus, right? So we gotta move away from the consensus of startup founders, away from the consensus of investors, away from the consensus of your friends. And it's really interesting 'cause, like, another way that I like to think about how do you move away from consensus is doing things that are just hard. Saying that you wanna do something that takes 10 years, especially when you're a young person, that just seems really intimidating. So it's, like, easy to tell yourself, "Oh, yeah, I know the numbers say it's gonna take 10 years, but, like, I'll figure it out in two." And then you cut down all of the things that might take longer than two years to work, and I feel like if you wanna cheat, just imagine ideas that might take longer than two years to work [laughs] and the, the, the, the, the likelihood of success could be way higher. [laughs]
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