October 21, 2005

Not An Idea. A Question.

Ideas for Startups is an interesting article from Paul Graham (he of Painters and Hackers fame) debunking the common myth that you need a killer idea to build a startup.

He claims that a question is a much better starting point - it's harder for a critic or detractor to attack, and lots of startups end up producing something quite different from their initial idea after it evolves through their trying to solve the initial problem. (Flickr is a prime example of this - it started life as an online game, and morphed into the photo-sharing site as they watched what the users were doing with it)

And then he goes on to explain why it's useful to have more than one person in the startup (which I agree with, despite being in a single-person startup), and rounds things off with a discussion of getting acquired.

Posted by Adrian at October 21, 2005 10:31 AM | TrackBack

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Comments

I enjoyed reading the article too. Totally agree with him especially the lack of a killer idea bit.

Posted by: Geoff at October 21, 2005 11:01 AM

Great article.

So if the best startups are between friends, and the ideas that you come up with in the shower are best refined by talking to your friends, does that mean that in the interests of efficiency it would best to get in the shower with my friends!?

I'm not sure I'd be any good at this startup business.

Posted by: Andrew at October 21, 2005 12:35 PM

Ah but Andrew, it's not the ideas you have a problem with, it's finishing them off and releasing them that you seem to struggle with ;-)

Does that mean that you're already showering with friends?!??

Posted by: Adrian at October 24, 2005 04:03 PM
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