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. This is YC's direct answer to your question, walking through how partners spot ideas that only became buildable once models got... Y Combinator Video · ~15 min How To Get AI Startup Ideas Y Combinator
  2. Video · 55 min Balaji Srinivasan on Navigating the Idea Maze and Finding a Co-Founder Balaji Srinivasan
  3. Video · 75 min Don Valentine, Sequoia Capital: Target Big Markets Don Valentine
  4. Video · ~90 min Startup Secrets: Building a Value Proposition Michael Skok
  5. A short clip where Gurley explains why top-down TAM estimates are often badly wrong, using Uber and the early cell phone market... Startup Archive Video · 5 min Bill Gurley on Why Founders and Investors Should Not Pay Too Much Attention to TAM Bill Gurley
  6. A short primer on how real technologies move from ignored to inevitable in an S shaped curve, and why early flatness fools... Andreessen Horowitz Video · 4 min a16z Video: S-curves in Innovation Benedict Evans
  7. Two YC partners explain how products that looked small at launch grew into large markets, which reframes the worry that your... Dalton Caldwell and Michael Seibel, Y Combinator Video · ~14 min Simple Products That Became Big Companies Dalton Caldwell and Michael Seibel
  8. A short, well told talk arguing success is never pure meritocracy, and showing how to find and ethically use the edges you... TED Video · 14 min Startups, Entrepreneurship and Unfair Advantages (TEDxSOAS) Hasan Kubba
  9. The instinct to wait until you are perfectly ready, and to apologise for your starting point, is exactly what this talk names... TED Video · 13 min Teach girls bravery, not perfection Reshma Saujani
  10. Video · ~30 min How To Perfectly Pitch Your Seed Stage Startup Michael Seibel, Y Combinator
  11. A clear explainer arguing that founder-market fit lives with the people who define and sell the product, and that outsiders can... Feel the Boot Video · ~18 min Founder/Market Fit: Your Startup's Early-Stage Advantage Cofounder Adam (Feel the Boot)
  12. The clearest explanation of the access gap, backed by data from real pitch rooms: investors ask women prevention questions... TED Video · 16 min The Real Reason Female Entrepreneurs Get Less Funding Dana Kanze
  13. Video · 48 min Clayton Christensen: Disruptive Innovation (Saïd Business School lecture) Clayton Christensen
  14. Video Kunal Shah: Exploring Consumer Psychology (Return on India, Ep. 6) Kunal Shah
  15. Video The Future is Default Global (with Angela Strange and Anish Acharya) Angela Strange and Anish Acharya
  16. Video · 60 min Intro to Large Language Models (1 hour talk) Andrej Karpathy
  17. Video · ~20 min Delta 4 theory Kunal Shah
  18. Video 2,851 Miles (regulatory capture and startups) Bill Gurley
  19. Video · ~90 min video How to consistently go viral: Nikita Bier's playbook for consumer apps Nikita Bier

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 →