What would you do to get a good idea? I have an area I'm really interested in, but it just seems like any ideas I have could have the potential to be a dud. Coming up with an idea that you'd be willing to commit several years to just seems incredibly hard.

I'd imagine that working at a real company isn't really the best occupation and place to generate new ideas unless what you're interested in is more practical. It just seems like it'd be more distracting than inspiring.

I've thought about getting a second undergrad degree (math, very closely related to the area) to broaden my horizon and I'm from Europe so I wouldn't be in debt or anything, but the idea feels quite silly.