Welcome to my startup dashboard
I’m always thinking about startups. On this page I have listed many of the ideas I have come up with over the past few years. Most of the projects listed here never become anything more than an idea. Some take an initial shape (often a doc and domain), and a few even go to market or are being worked on now.
P.S. Thanks to Ivy Xu for some of the points below from her podcast.
- Pay attention to your own problems – this is by far the bulk of the ideas on this page. Whenever you see a problem in the world, note it down and then brainstorm around what a solution might be.
- Niche down – think of an existing industry where you might be able to identify a niche. For example, food delivery apps but for Seniors, or Fitness tracking apps for HIIT enthusiasts, or Travel tips app for Japanese students learning English
- Old problem / New problem / Old solution / New solution – Map each of these on a 2×2 matrix and then use it to brainstorm. The one to avoid is old problem / old solution. You can come up with lots of great ideas with this matrix.
- Productize an existing service that’s normally customized – for example building websites is often a “custom quote”. Find a way to package it into products people can buy.
- Bundling/Unbundling – think about ways to bundle stuff together. For example with bundling, bed and breakfast (house + food), all-inclusive travel packages (air, hotel, taxi, food), all-inclusive website (building, hosting, security, reports) and more. Unbundling examples could be with mobile – you can buy a phone without a plan, or selling individual MP3s vs the whole album. More about this concept here.
- “Not Not test” – Adopted from Merrick Furst, ideate by asking the question: what would our potential target market say to themselves “I cannot not buy this!”. So for example with shopping online, a service that ships nearly anything to you for free for a monthly free. Sound familiar? Yep, that’s Amazon Prime.
How to use these ideation frameworks:
- List a target market that you care about – preferably one you are part of
- Note down all the problems they are experiencing, INDEPENDENT of existing solutions. Think more generally vs specifically.
- Go through each of the frameworks described above and ideate
Need more help? I encourage you to listen to Ivy Xu for more inspiration.
Navigate
Startups I'm validating / Building...
Most of these probably won’t work out but I don’t mind. It’s only a domain name and my sweat equity. I gain lot of joy and experience building and experimenting, so I don’t plan to stop.
These are the ideas I’m actively working on. They are all in various stages – pitch decks, MVP websites, building communities, product research etc. I use the talents acquired over 20 years (building websites) to quickly build prototypes and try things out.
Ever get that nagging feeling like there is “something” here that you need to investigate further? These qualify: