# How to get and test ideas

**Author:** Michael Seibel
**Type:** Video
**URL:** https://www.ycombinator.com/library/7x-how-to-get-and-test-ideas
**YouTube ID:** vDXkpJw16os

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Y Combinator Partner Michael Seibel on getting and testing startup ideas.

## Transcript

there's a common misconception that your idea has to be great in order start a company and the first thing I want to do is destroy that misconception personally I was one of the cofounders of a company called justin.tv it later became a company called twitch and sold to Amazon for almost a billion dollars our original idea was to create an online reality TV show clearly it's hard to draw a line

between that and creating a live video site where people watch video gamers and chat with their friends but that's exactly what it became and so don't fall into the trap of thinking that your initial idea has to be great by any definition this is what you should think about instead my first advice is to start with a problem I think the starting with ideas is tricky because immediately people want to grade your idea it's a lot easier to start with a

problem and to think about how do you grade a problem when you think about a problem you should be asking yourself do I have any relationship with this problem personally is this a problem that I have is a problem that my friends have it's a problem - ma'am family has is it a problem that exists through the work is it a problem that's in my community oftentimes having a personal connection to the problem is really helpful for two reasons one you can tell whether this solution is even within the

ballpark of solving the problem because you've got some connection with the problem and - when you're feeling discouraged and the solutions that you're building are working you still have some personal connection to the problem that sees you through until you find a solution that does work so that's the first place I would start thinking about problems and I think a lot of people keep little idea books with start-up ideas I think they'd have a lot more success if they kept little problem books and wrote down notes on the problems that they encounter on a daily basis or that their friends complain

about their family complain about another interesting thing to do when you're starting to think about problems is to brainstorm with friends this is the perfect time to start thinking how do you recruit co-founders and a lot of recruiting co-founders is about having really good brainstorming sessions sessions we're like you talk about a problem they elaborate on it and you kind of realize that you trade ideas well and that you can talk to each other well you can build ideas together and so I really advise when you're doing these thinking about problem do it with some

friends friends that you might want to create a start-up with one day once you find a problem that's interesting enough to start pursuing further the next question I ask myself is why are you uniquely qualified to work on this problem now if I qualified I don't mean in the classical resume sense like oh you've had 25 years experience in this area or something like that but what I do mean is that like is there some angle on the problem that you understand that you don't think others understand is there some way of attacking the problem

is there's some perspective on the problem is some personal experience for the problem that you have you don't feel as generally used or understood in other solutions to the problem in this face it's often helpful if you're solving a common problem to look at some of the people who tried to solve the problem before and look at some of the products that are trying to solve the problem or have failed to solve the problem just so you can get a basic understanding of what other people thought their unique insight was and whether it was the same or different than yours this is kind of

your gut check hey is this a right fit for me the next step is to start thinking about how do you want to build your MVP your Minimum Viable Product what's the first product what's the first solution you're going to build and release to your users to see if maybe you can try to help them solve this problem the most important thing to think about your MVP is don't fall in love with it your MVP is most likely not going to solve the problem or is going to solve the problem very poorly and really it's

the first step in the learning process of whether the saw problem is solvable at all let alone whether you can solve it a lot of people fall in love with their product and are not in love with their problem or their customer I advise the opposite be in love with your problem be in love with the cause tomorrow and treat your product in a way that it can change it can develop it can improve don't be too in love with your initial product the most important thing to not fall too in love with initial product is to release it quickly

oftentimes an MVP can be built and released in days or weeks it's not going to be perfect it might not be something you're proud of but it can be the beginning of learning about whether or not you can actually solve the problem the last thing I would consider once you have an MVP is be very careful here initial users are I actually believe that your initial users should almost be hand-picked but certainly you should have a strong opinion about who your initial customer is and you shouldn't

try to solve this problem for someone who one isn't willing to try a start-up or two the problem you're trying to solve is not a really important problem in their life so your goal here with your MVP is not to see how many people want to use your product is to see whether for if for any group of people does this actually solve the problem for any group of your customers excuse me does this actually solve the problem that you're trying to solve and so the best startups actually very heavily filter the people who are able to use

the initial product and make sure that they're the right type of initial customer so those are the steps that I would take from thinking about of problems of building the first version apart to getting feedback on it that's how I would think about this problem thank you you
