At a glance
WHAT IT’S REALLY ABOUT
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.
IDEAS WORTH REMEMBERING
5 ideasDon’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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
WORDS WORTH SAVING
5 quotesIf 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
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