Find & validate your idea

Find a problem worth solving, then prove people want it before you build.

What founders use for find & validate your idea, ranked by how many answers lean on it.

  1. The most cited annual snapshot of the Indian startup and consumer economy, with hard numbers on income distribution, the thin... Blume Ventures Article · Long report Indus Valley Annual Report 2024 Sajith Pai, Anurag Pagaria, Kunal Bajaj In 2 answers
  2. Maurya names the exact failure in this question: founders ask what problems their solution can solve instead of what problems... Love the Problem (Medium) Article · ~8 min read The Problem With Problems Ash Maurya In 2 answers
  3. Intercom's Jobs-to-be-Done writing shows how to ask what customers are hiring your product to do, which forces you to describe... Intercom Article · ~short book, free Understanding Jobs-to-be-Done Des Traynor, Intercom In 2 answers
  4. The opportunity is often a capability that already works in a raw model but nobody has wrapped into a specific job yet. This... Andreessen Horowitz Article · 12 min read The AI Future Is Already Here, It's Just Not Productized Yet Angela Strange In 2 answers
  5. If you truly have no category, this is the book on deliberately designing one, which reframes sizing as creating demand rather... playbigger.com Book · Book Play Bigger Al Ramadan, Dave Peterson, Christopher Lochhead, Kevin Maney In 2 answers
  6. This is the most direct answer to your question from an investor who reads these slides for a living. It walks through why a... Underscore VC (Richard Dulude) Article · 12 min read How to Create a Compelling Market Size Slide (With Examples) Richard Dulude In 2 answers
  7. This is the single closest essay to your question. Evans argues that saying "that looks like a toy" or "people always said... Benedict Evans Essay · 12 min read Not even wrong: ways to predict technology Benedict Evans In 2 answers
  8. Neumann applies Perez's framework to software to ask where we actually are in the cycle and what that means for which markets... Reaction Wheel Essay · 30 min read The Deployment Age Jerry Neumann In 2 answers
  9. This is the cleanest walkthrough of building a market number from the ground up: count the real end users who fit your profile,... Disciplined Entrepreneurship (Bill Aulet, MIT) Article Calculate the TAM for Your Beachhead Market Bill Aulet In 2 answers
  10. A clear summary of the Golder and Tellis research showing that pioneers failed far more often than fast followers who entered... ProductPlan Article The Myth of First-Mover Advantage ProductPlan In 2 answers
  11. This essay works through the why now for companies like Uber and Plaid, showing exactly which external shift (GPS economics, a... Tanay Jaipuria Essay · 12 min read Startups and Timing Tanay Jaipuria In 2 answers
  12. A short, readable on-ramp to Perez's installation and deployment phases from an investor who uses the framework in practice. If... AVC (Fred Wilson) Article · 8 min read The Carlota Perez Framework Fred Wilson In 2 answers
  13. A simple two-by-two for whether you are too early, too late, or on time, with examples for each box. It gives you plain... Gabor Cselle (Medium) Article The 4 Scenarios of Startup Timing Gabor Cselle In 2 answers
  14. This piece connects founder-market fit to the practical act of fundraising, where you have to say your why you out loud and... Forbes Article · 6 min read The Importance of Founder-Market Fit and How to Highlight It While Fundraising Jillian Canning In 2 answers
  15. Graham argues the trait that best predicts founder success is being relentlessly resourceful, which is much of what 'why you'... paulgraham.com Essay · 5 min read Relentlessly Resourceful Paul Graham In 2 answers
  16. Naval's idea of specific knowledge, the thing you cannot be trained for, is the sharpest lens on why you and not someone... The Almanack of Naval Ravikant Article · 6 min read Find and Build Specific Knowledge Naval Ravikant In 2 answers
  17. Field-tested fundraising lessons drawn from founders who raised billions in follow-on capital. It situates 'why you' inside the... First Round Review Article · ~20 min read The Fundraising Wisdom That Helped Our Founders Raise $18B in Follow-On Capital First Round Review In 2 answers
  18. A plain explainer of the exact filter this question is about, with the signals investors read as founder/market fit. It is... The VC Corner Article · ~12 min read Founder-Market Fit: The #1 VC Filter You Didn't Know Was Judging You Ruben Dominguez, The VC Corner In 2 answers
  19. Adapted from a talk at MIT, this is the clearest case that being a student is not a disqualifier. Graham is honest about where... Paul Graham (paulgraham.com) Essay · 20 min read A Student's Guide to Startups Paul Graham In 2 answers
  20. Perez zooms out to centuries of technological surges and shows a repeating pattern: a new technology installs quietly, gets... Edward Elgar / Carlota Perez Book · 224 pages Technological Revolutions and Financial Capital: The Dynamics of Bubbles and Golden Ages Carlota Perez In 2 answers
  21. McCormick writes long, plain language deep dives on emerging companies and sectors while they are still forming, which is... notboring.co Article · twice weekly Not Boring Packy McCormick In 2 answers
  22. Each year a16z partners publish the problems they think startups will tackle next, which is less a prediction and more a map of... Andreessen Horowitz Article · 20 min read Big Ideas in Tech a16z partners In 2 answers
  23. The canonical account of how disruptive technologies start out worse and cheaper, get ignored by incumbents, then improve until... Clayton Christensen (Harvard Business School) Book · Book (~280 pages) The Innovator's Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail Clayton M. Christensen In 2 answers
  24. Nat Turner (who sold two companies he built this way) shares a systematic, repeatable method for finding ideas without... First Round Review (review.firstround.com) Article · ~15 min read 90% of Feedback is Crap: How to Find the Next Big Startup Idea First Round Review In 2 answers

Show the next 24

The questions

Finding & shaping ideas 18

Find a problem worth years of your life.

I want to start a startup but I don't have an idea. Where do I even begin? 19 → How do I come up with startup ideas that aren't just 'Uber for X'? 19 → Should I solve a problem I personally have, or chase a bigger market? 19 → How do I know if my idea is a real problem or just a 'nice to have'? 19 → I have too many ideas. How do I pick which one to actually work on? 19 → All 18 questions in Finding & shaping ideas →
Validating your idea 21

Get evidence before you write code.

What does 'validating an idea' actually mean? 20 → How do I know if my idea is any good? 18 → How do I validate an idea without building anything? 18 → How do I talk to customers without getting false positives? 19 → How many people should I talk to, and how do I find them? 17 → All 21 questions in Validating your idea →
Market size & timing 18

Is it big enough, and why now?

How big does my market need to be for this to be a real business? 19 → What are TAM, SAM, and SOM and how do I actually calculate them? 18 → Why does 'why now?' matter so much for a startup idea? 17 → My market is small right now but growing fast. Is that a problem? 16 → How do I size a market for India specifically when data is messy? 19 → All 18 questions in Market size & timing →
Founder-market fit 17

Why you, and why this problem?

What is founder-market fit and how do I know if I have it? 18 → Do I need to be an expert in an industry to start a company in it? 19 → I'm passionate about an idea but have zero background in it. Should I still do it? 19 → How much does 'why you?' actually matter to investors and to success? 19 → As a woman founder, or one building outside the big startup hubs, how do I turn my background into an edge? 19 → All 17 questions in Founder-market fit →
Spotting trends & opportunities 18

Live in the future and build what's missing.

How do I spot trends early enough to build a startup on them? 20 → How do I tell the difference between a real trend and a passing fad? 20 → Everyone says the next big thing looks like a toy. What does that actually mean? 16 → Where do I look to find emerging opportunities before they're obvious? 19 → What are the biggest emerging opportunities in India right now? 18 → All 18 questions in Spotting trends & opportunities →
eChai Partner Brands The partnership →