What to Build?

January 16th, 2024 (9 months ago) • 2 minutes

This question had always been lingering on my mind. I always wanted to build a startup, but which idea could be the one? Here are some takeaways from my others' advice on the same topic.

1. If you want to make something grand, don't start with grand ambitions. Start small and start writing ideas down, the more you do it, the more you have.

2. Focus on repeat offenders. These ideas are the ones that you keep thinking about, the one that you fall asleep to.

3. Tell your friends. This helps to validate your idea (or shut them down if they are bad). And with accountability as well.

4. Make sure you enjoy thinking about it. The more you think about it, the more experience you gain. And you slowly become the subject matter expert.

5. Simplify. As en engineer, we tend to overcomplicate things, because we think problems are complicated to start with and we want to make it 'scalable'. Instead, take a step back, and think about how you can simplify the problem. And thus the solution.

6. Validate the market. You can build a steller product, but if no one is using it, then it's only a product for your own satisfacation. Start talking to people when you are building. Even better, build in public.

7. Launch uncomfortably quickly. There's never too early to launch. You can always iterate and improve. But if you don't launch, you will never know if it's good enough.