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. Before you spend a weekend guessing, Google Trends gives you a real, free read on whether interest in your idea is rising,... Google Tool Google Trends Google In 9 answers
  2. The free tool for running the how-would-you-feel-without-this survey that underpins the Superhuman method, giving you a... Sean Ellis and GoPractice Tool · Free tool Product/Market Fit Survey Sean Ellis In 7 answers
  3. The de facto global standard for pitch deck structure, straight from Sequoia. The same outline Airbnb's founders used; if you... Sequoia Capital Template · 10 min read Writing a Business Plan (The Sequoia Pitch Deck Template) Sequoia Capital In 6 answers
  4. This is the most practical way to see search and interest trends climbing before they hit newsletters and everyone's timeline.... Exploding Topics Tool Exploding Topics Exploding Topics In 6 answers
  5. A one page template that forces you to write down the problem, the customer, and why you are placed to solve it, all on a... leanfoundry.com Template · one page Lean Canvas Ash Maurya In 6 answers
  6. A concrete, copyable Google Sheet (no paywall, no credit card) that builds your number bottoms-up from customer segments and... Visible.vc Template · ~15 min to fill in Total Addressable Market Template (free Google Sheet) Mike Preuss In 4 answers
  7. The fastest way to stand up a fake-door landing page. Build a one-page site in an afternoon, add an email capture, and measure... carrd.co Tool Carrd carrd.co In 4 answers
  8. A one-page tool for writing down what you have learned about a customer's jobs, pains, and gains, then checking whether your... Strategyzer Tool · template The Value Proposition Canvas Strategyzer In 4 answers
  9. This is the original Sequoia template that put "Why now" on the map as a named slide investors expect. It states the test... Sequoia Capital Template · 10 min read Writing a Business Plan Sequoia Capital In 4 answers
  10. The best free on-ramp for founders who feel 'too early' for a funded accelerator, it distils YC's thinking into a structured... Y Combinator Course · ~7-week self-paced course Startup School, Free Startup Course Y Combinator In 3 answers
  11. When you cannot easily reach users, cheap tests can substitute for some of the hard questions, and pretotyping gives you the... Pretotyping.org Tool Pretotype It: Make Sure You Are Building the Right It Alberto Savoia In 3 answers
  12. A living list of problem areas YC actively wants founders to tackle, useful as raw material and as a way to spot where the... Y Combinator Tool · Browse Requests for Startups Y Combinator In 3 answers
  13. A community where founders openly share the problems they are solving, what is working, and what is not. Reading real people... Indie Hackers Tool · Browse Indie Hackers Indie Hackers In 3 answers
  14. A free one-page template for capturing what you actually learned from a single interview, so the insight does not evaporate. It... Product Talk Template · 1-page template The Interview Snapshot template Teresa Torres In 2 answers
  15. If launching is a repeated habit rather than one event, you need a low-stakes place to keep launching, and Product Hunt is the... Product Hunt Tool · Web platform Product Hunt Product Hunt In 2 answers
  16. A finance-grade reference for the actual formulas, with a calculator so you can sanity-check your TAM, SAM, and SOM arithmetic.... Wall Street Prep Tool Market Sizing: Formula and Calculator Wall Street Prep In 2 answers
  17. Riley spends dozens of hours per report distilling an emerging market into a five minute read with players, opportunities, and... trends.vc Tool Trends.vc Dru Riley In 2 answers
  18. The deepest no-code stack, database, workflows, and custom UI, for building genuinely complex web apps and marketplaces without... bubble.io Tool · platform Bubble, No-Code Full-Stack App Builder Bubble
  19. The largest and most credible free co-founder matching platform in the world, with vetted founders and 100,000+ matches made.... ycombinator.com Tool · Free platform, ongoing Y Combinator Co-Founder Matching Y Combinator
  20. The Test Card is a one-page worksheet that forces a vague market-size belief into four fields: what we believe, how we will... Strategyzer Template · one-page worksheet Test Card Strategyzer (Alexander Osterwalder)
  21. This is a ready-to-run interview script written for the exact moment you have an idea but nothing to show, so a non-technical... Deploy Empathy Template · One page, full script Customer Interview Script: Discovery Phase (before you've built anything) Michele Hansen (Deploy Empathy)
  22. When analyst reports do not exist, MCA filings are one of the few honest data points you can actually get in India, and Tofler... Tofler Tool Tofler: Indian Company Financials and Filings TWS Systems Private Limited
  23. If your users are on phones outside the big startup hubs, most of them already live inside WhatsApp and have never installed a... WhatsApp (Meta) Tool · product page plus API docs WhatsApp Business Platform Meta
  24. Before you touch live traffic, the cheapest way to read price sensitivity is to just ask people, and the Van Westendorp method... OpinionX Tool Van Westendorp for Pricing Research: A Survey Guide Daniel Kyne

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 →