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. A large nonprofit network of women and nonbinary investors and founders that runs Female Founder Office Hours, giving you real... All Raise Tool · Community / program All Raise (Female Founder Office Hours) All Raise
  2. YC's curated shelf of talks and essays filtered to women founders, spanning fundraising, self doubt, and building. It is a... Y Combinator Course · Curated collection YC Startup Library: Women Founders Y Combinator
  3. A ready structure for running the customer conversations that prove or disprove your fit, built on The Mom Test rules. Since... Mari Luukkainen (Gumroad) Template · Notion template The Mom Test Customer Interview (Notion template) Mari Luukkainen
  4. When a buyer says yes, you want a clean, standard agreement ready so the pilot becomes signed proof fast. This free,... Common Paper Template · 2 page template Design Partner Agreement (Free Template) Common Paper
  5. A subscription publication that reports one deep story a day on Indian startups, tech, and consumer companies. When a trend is... The Ken Tool The Ken The Ken
  6. The developer forum where a lot of new tools and shifts get discussed before they reach the mainstream tech press. Reading it... Y Combinator Tool Hacker News Y Combinator
  7. Course · ~6.5 hours Making Friends with Machine Learning (full course) Cassie Kozyrkov
  8. A ready to use version of the 40 percent very disappointed survey, so you can measure real attachment instead of guessing from... LearningLoop Template · quick setup Sean Ellis Product-Market Fit Survey Sean Ellis (framework)
  9. The account aggregator framework lets a person share verified financial data with consent, and Sahamati is the ecosystem hub... Sahamati Tool Sahamati (Account Aggregator ecosystem) Sahamati
  10. If ONDC is your opening, this is the primary source for how the network actually works and how to join it, including... ONDC Tool ONDC (official network) ONDC

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 →