How do you brainstorm for ideas for products? | Hacker News Reader

How do you brainstorm for ideas for products?

10 pointsdawie23 comments

I recently found a co-founder and we are going to build a product. We are going to start brainstorming product ideas soon and I was wondering how the YC readers came up with their ideas.

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I never try to force it. All the good ideas I've had have just popped into my head when I wasn't trying to think of them, often in the shower or bath. However, this doesn't just happen without preparation. I do a few things to maintain especially fertile ground for new ideas.

First, I read a lot: the WSJ every day, sites like this one, articles on a variety of subjects, and books. Second, I free up lots of time to do nothing in particular in terms of thinking, such as going out to eat, taking long showers and baths, watching TV, etc. Third, I'm always looking for problems people are having. Fourth, I try talk to people about their general experiences on the Internet. Fifth, I bounce ideas off my wife. In your case, that would be with your co-founder. Finally, sometimes I just build things for a day or two on a whim to see where it goes.

Great advice. Thanks!

I second the doing nothing idea. I always sit down to watch Mythbusters, or Modern marvels, and well marvel at the time I'm wasting, but after the show is over I always have one or two new ideas. Granted not great ideas, but at least ideas.

I'm always confused by people who don't have an idea but want to start a business. Surely, an idea has to come first (even if the business ends up doing something else).

I maintain an ideas list which is added too weekly. They're not all gold dust and so far none of them have been strong enough for my to quit my day job but I am interested and excited by a few and actively working on them. I think you need to have a desire to build XXXX before you have a desire to build a business, otherwise you're putting the cart before the horse.

Anyway, with that useless rant out of the way, the best way is simply to think of something that annoys you (or annoys someone you know). Actually, don't think of the problem, think of the solution when you next come across an annoyance. And don''t go for something just because it sounds "cool". There's lots of talk about finding the "pain" that a particular customer/market has and solving it -- I've heard it so often it sounds corny but it's not.

Here's an idea that's been sitting on my list for a while: new album notifications. I don't subscribe to individual band newsletters or read music magazines, and my favourite artists aren't necessarily heard on the radio, so how am I to hear about their new releases? Well, Windows Media Player has a comprehensive list of my music and what I actually listen to (an a plugin interface). How hard would it be to poll Amazon once a month for new albums from my 20 favourite artists? Business model: Amazon affiliate sales by allowing users to buy/preorder through your application. Sure its not the best idea in the world but just an example of how I went from a problem to a solution (aka a business idea -- and, no, I'm not working on it).

Speaking of your idea, I recently had a more general version of the idea. Let me know if you're interested in discussing it, or if any other YC readers are. I went ahead and made it its own submission so more people might be kind enough to offer feedback: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45700

http://www.jim-george.com/newTunes/

Nice (if I used iTunes, but the principle holds). It's also proof towards the idea that if you find something to be a problem, other people probably do too!

Kevin O'Conner, the founder of DoubleClick, answers your question very well in his book: "The Map of Innovation: Creating Something Out of Nothing". It's an excellent small book that you can read in an afternoon. He explains his brainstorming process and puts a lot of emphasis on selecting the right idea before spending too much time and effort building it.

I just ordered it on your advise. I sure hope you're right ;-)

I am going to read it for sure.

The Medici Effect by Frans Johansson has some good studies on brainstorming in groups. He cites studies that say that the #1 barrier to innovation in brainstorming is 'blocking'. Blocking occurs when one person interrupts others, mid-idea. So in order to get the combination of good ideas without blocking, all one needs to do is have a piece of paper per participant, and then one extra piece in the center of a table. Then each participant just writes down one idea (the idea should be on a focused cause ie ideas on fighting spam) and then exchanges his paper with the one in the middle. Then as a participant reads his new sheet, he tries to improve on the idea(s) that are already on the paper before adding a brand new idea.

I've tried this and it works for us.

I'm not a huge fan of brainstorming, that has never seemed to work for me.

Almost all of my ideas come from encountering problems. Sometimes it me who encounters the problem, sometimes some one I've talked to, and sometimes I read about it. For example, I was looking at doing some programming contracting, but noticed all of the outsourcing sites like ODesk have a race to the bottom where all that matters is price. Maybe there is an opportunity for a high end odesk that rewards firms have good communication skills and do more than work for a spec. For another example, I read about the horrible CPM's that Facebook gets. Maybe there is an opportunity to build an Adsense-like product for social networks that allows targeting based on user profile rather than page content.

The other thing I do is every time I see a brand new technology that has the potential to create a category, I think of all the things that I could build off of it. For instance, e-ink has this electronic paper that is easier on the eyes than paper. Who has high print costs that might benefit from this? School systems? Universities? If you can think of how a technology applies to a unique area, you can be the first to a lucrative market.

One of the hardest things about being a young company founder is that you do not spend time around people with a lot of money. You would be amazed at how many bigger companies just throw away money on crappy software or throw away time on things that could easily be automated. One source of ideas would be to spend time around people who have money.

see http://www.paulgraham.com/ideas.html .

i'm not a PG fanboy, your question is just directly relevant to what he wrote and i think he's right.

basically, often times ideas that turn into billion-dollar ideas come from doing stuff smart people would already be doing anyway - writing BASIC interpreters (microsoft), good search engines (google), etc.

big mistake! downmod for not being a PG fanboy.

edit: (seriously)

Another idea is to keep a continual list of the all the problems you see in your life without automatically thinking of solutions right away. Then sit down later and see if you can solve any of them, or turn the problem on its head perhaps and then solve it.

I agree, Its all about the bug list. Think of all the things that bother you or dont make sense in your every day routine and think about how it should be done ideally. The solution is the beginning of a startup.

Oh, and keep a running list.

Yes, keeping a journal is key. The habit of acting upon your ideas- even if it's something as simple as writing them down-, stimulates your brain to give you more. Also, you can stimulate your creativity and get new ideas by trying to combine existing ones at random. It's harder to escape the block if you are in front of a blank page.

It's the same way that cartoonists come up with ideas for their strips. Sit there, and let your mind wander. Too often, we rely on outside stimulus to entertain ourselves. If you can cultivate your sense of imagination and freedom to let your mind wander, you'll think of some stuff.

By another token, read a lot and read widely. Avoid reading junk...like how to get funded by VCs--you're not there yet. The more you read, the more you see how everything's related to one another, and you start to see where the gaps are that you can fill.

I think the more interesting question would be: What techniques do you use to develop a completely unique solution to a problem?

Most of what is being done today is incremental problem solving. What are some techniques that can be used to de-construct a problem so that you can get past previous experience bias and find new ways to solve it?

I guess what I'm asking is, what techniques do you guys use to get a view from "10,000 feet" above a problem rather than the biased view you get when immersed in the middle of it?

You may want to avoid 'brainstorming' as an idea-production method. There have been several studies done where it has been shown to be less productive than other methods. See Marc Andreessen's recent post on the subject: http://blog.pmarca.com/2007/07/quote-of-the--3.html

Have a look at "The Myths of Innovation" by Scott Berkun

Brainstorming is a waste of time.

That makes an interesting point: the poster would maybe get more a varied response if he asked "how do you get ideas" instead.

One heuristic that may help find different ideas is to look for challengeable assumptions in your current ones.

If you don't believe in brainstorming, what works best for you?

[Edit: See section 2 on brainstorming here; very interesting:

http://www.gamasutra.com/features/20051026/gabler_pfv.htm ]

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