Ideas & Opportunity

Should I chase whatever is hot (AI, crypto) or build in a boring niche?

A starting point

Chasing the hype cycle puts you in a crowd of tourists competing on the same generic idea; boring niches have less competition and customers who actually pay. The best move is to bring a hot enabler like AI to a boring, underserved niche you understand, which combines a real 'why now' with real founder-market fit. Ride the wave, but aim it at a problem nobody glamorous is solving.

Go deeper

Watch

▶️ Video
Free Beginner

How to Get and Evaluate Startup Ideas

On YC Startup Library by Jared Friedman (Y Combinator) ~50 min

Why we picked it

A YC partner turns 'how do I get an idea' into a concrete checklist you can run today, plus the traps (tarpit ideas) that sink beginners. It's the practical companion to Paul Graham's essay, with a repeatable framework for judging an idea's strength.

  • Evaluate ideas on the problem: how many people have it, how often, and how badly.
  • Watch out for 'tarpit ideas' that feel exciting but have quietly killed hundreds of startups.
  • The best sources are your own expertise, things you personally wish existed, and noticing recent changes.
Open ycombinator.com →

Read

📄 Article
Free Beginner

The Next Big Thing Will Start Out Looking Like a Toy

From cdixon.org by Chris Dixon ~5 min read

Why we picked it

The definitive short read on why disruptive ideas get dismissed as toys, and why that dismissal is your opening. It reframes what looks trivial today as the thing that owns the market tomorrow, essential for spotting trends before they're obvious.

  • Disruptive products launch under-powered and get laughed off by incumbents.
  • Because experts ignore 'toys,' the early builder gets a head start no one contests.
  • Judge a fast-growing product by what it becomes in five years, not what it does today.
Open cdixon.org →
✍️ Essay
Free Intermediate

The Only Thing That Matters

From pmarchive.com by Marc Andreessen ~15 min read

Why we picked it

The essay that put 'product-market fit' into the startup vocabulary. Read it for the gut-level description of what PMF feels like when it's happening vs when it isn't, the intuition behind the metrics.

  • Market matters most; a great market pulls product out of a startup.
  • You can feel PMF, customers buy as fast as you can ship.
  • Before PMF, do whatever it takes to get there; nothing else counts.
Open pmarchive.com →

People also ask

How do I spot trends early enough to build a startup on them? Live at the edge of a fast-changing field and pay attention to what enthusiasts and builders are hacking on before it's mainstream. Trends worth bu... Intermediate 3 resources → How do I tell the difference between a real trend and a passing fad? A real trend is powered by a durable shift in technology, cost, or behaviour that only moves one direction; a fad is powered by novelty and hype th... Intermediate 3 resources → Everyone says the next big thing looks like a toy. What does that actually mean? Disruptive products usually launch under-powered and get laughed off as toys, so incumbents ignore them while they quietly improve. By the time the... Intermediate 2 resources → Where do I look to find emerging opportunities before they're obvious? Go where the problems are loudest and the solutions are ugliest: niche communities, power users, and industries still run on spreadsheets and Whats... Intermediate 3 resources → What are the biggest emerging opportunities in India right now? The durable Indian bets sit on real shifts: rising India1 disposable income, cheap data and UPI rails, vernacular and India2 internet users coming ... Advanced 3 resources → What does 'validating an idea' actually mean? Validation is gathering real-world evidence that a specific group of people has a painful problem AND will change their behaviour (pay, sign up, sw... Beginner 3 resources →