Podcast · ~90 min

Pattern Breakers: How to find a great startup idea

Lenny Rachitsky with Mike Maples Jr. · Lenny's Podcast (lennysnewsletter.com) Freemium Intermediate

If you would rather hear the Pattern Breakers thinking as a conversation, this episode covers it with concrete stories and pushback from Lenny. Maples explains living in the future, spotting inflections, and why the best ideas feel non-obvious and even wrong at first. A good long listen for a commute while you are still circling a direction.

  • The future is already here, just unevenly spread, so go find it
  • Great ideas usually start out sounding contrarian or slightly crazy
  • Insight comes from immersion in the new, not from a whiteboard session
Open on lennysnewsletter.com ↗

It answers 8 questions

  1. How do I come up with startup ideas that aren't just 'Uber for X'?
  2. Should I solve a problem I personally have, or chase a bigger market?
  3. Where do I look to find emerging opportunities before they're obvious?
  4. Should I chase whatever is hot (AI, crypto) or build in a boring niche?
  5. How do I find a problem worth solving in an industry I have never worked in?
  6. Is it smarter to enter a market while it's still forming, or wait until demand is obvious and proven?
  7. How do I know if a trend is big enough to build a company on, or just a small niche?
  8. How do I generate a steady flow of idea candidates instead of waiting for one big flash?

Read with it

  1. The definitive essay on where good ideas come from: notice problems you personally have, don't force it. Use it as the lens for... paulgraham.com Essay · ~20 min read How to Get Startup Ideas Paul Graham
  2. This is the book length version of the exact instinct in our short answer, that you generate real insight by living in the... Mike Maples Jr. and Peter Ziebelman (patternbreakers.com) Book · ~304 pages Pattern Breakers: Why Some Start-Ups Change the Future Mike Maples Jr. and Peter Ziebelman
  3. The single best thing ever written on customer conversations. It teaches you to ask about the customer's life and past... momtestbook.com Book · ~130 pages The Mom Test Rob Fitzpatrick
  4. Entering an unfamiliar industry means you cannot see the walls and dead ends that veterans already know. Dixon explains that a... cdixon.org Essay · short read The Idea Maze Chris Dixon
  5. Lenny interviewed founders of Gong, Notion, Figma, Amplitude, Retool and more to trace where their idea actually came from. The... Lenny's Newsletter Article · About 15 min read How the Most Successful B2B Startups Came Up With Their Original Idea Lenny Rachitsky
  6. Long-form, candid interviews with Indian founders and investors on how they actually grew, distributed and built brand, one of... The Neon Show / Neon Fund Podcast · 200+ episodes The Neon Show (100x Entrepreneur Podcast) Siddhartha Ahluwalia
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