P.S. Thanks to Ivy Xu for some of the points below from her podcast.

1. 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.
2. 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
3. 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.
4. 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.
5. 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 sell individual MP3s vs the whole album. More about this concept here.
6. “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:

1. List a target market that you care about – preferably one you are part of
2. Note down all the problems they are experiencing, INDEPENDENT of existing solutions. Think more generally vs specifically.
3. Go through each of the frameworks described above and ideate

Need more help? I encourage you to listen to Ivy Xu for more inspiration here or here

Testing