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. Video · ~50 min How to Evaluate Startup Ideas Kevin Hale, Y Combinator In 42 answers
  2. Video · ~25 min How to Talk to Users Eric Migicovsky In 33 answers
  3. Video · ~25 min How to Get and Evaluate Startup Ideas Jared Friedman In 32 answers
  4. Video · ~15 min How to Get and Test Startup Ideas Michael Seibel In 14 answers
  5. Video · ~13 min How to Plan an MVP Michael Seibel (YC) In 13 answers
  6. Video · About 26 minutes How to Succeed with a Startup Sam Altman (Y Combinator) In 9 answers
  7. Video · ~50 min Peter Thiel: Competition Is for Losers Peter Thiel In 8 answers
  8. Video · 5 min Clayton Christensen: When Only a Milkshake Will Do the Job Clayton Christensen In 7 answers
  9. Video · 35 min Where Do Great Startup Ideas Come From? Dalton Caldwell and Michael Seibel In 6 answers
  10. Video · 7 min The single biggest reason why startups succeed Bill Gross In 5 answers
  11. Michael Seibel, who ran YC, makes the blunt case for shipping something almost embarrassingly simple and learning from real... Y Combinator Startup Library Video · ~10 min video How to Build an MVP Michael Seibel In 4 answers
  12. Video · ~15 min Companies That Grow Without Ads (Delta-4 Theory) Kunal Shah (Founder, CRED) In 3 answers
  13. Video · ~20 min How to do customer interviews? | Rob Fitzpatrick, author of "The Mom Test" Rob Fitzpatrick In 3 answers
  14. Video · ~30 min Fall in Love with the Problem, Not the Solution Uri Levine In 3 answers
  15. Gross ranked hundreds of startups (his own and others') across five factors, and timing came out on top, ahead of team, idea,... TED Video · ~7 min The single biggest reason why start-ups succeed Bill Gross In 3 answers
  16. Video · ~35 min How to Pitch Your Startup Kevin Hale In 3 answers
  17. Johnson shows that most breakthroughs are slow hunches that sit half-formed for years and combine with other fragments, which... TED (Steven Johnson) Video · 18 min Where good ideas come from Steven Johnson In 3 answers
  18. Video · 12 min How VCs Evaluate Startup Timing, featuring Pete Flint at NFX Pete Flint, NFX In 3 answers
  19. Video · Talk, roughly 30 minutes David Rusenko: How To Find Product Market Fit David Rusenko (Weebly co-founder) In 2 answers
  20. Video · About 25 minutes Building Product Michael Seibel In 2 answers
  21. A two-minute animation showing why building before talking to customers wastes months. Useful to send a cofounder who wants to... Steve Blank Video · 2 min Customer Discovery: The Search for Product/Market Fit. 2 Minutes to See Why Steve Blank In 2 answers
  22. Video · ~45 min How to Launch an MVP Michael Seibel and Eric Migicovsky In 2 answers
  23. YC partner Harj Taggar walks through where co-founders actually come from, when to bring one on, and how to run the search... Y Combinator Startup Library (Harj Taggar) Video · 20 min How to Find the Right Co-Founder Harj Taggar In 2 answers
  24. YC founders talk candidly about disagreements that felt existential and how they worked through them. It normalizes that a hard... Y Combinator Library Video · ~30 min How To Navigate Co-Founder Disputes Y Combinator 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 →