How to Get and Evaluate Startup Ideas

Jared identifies common mistakes: building a solution before finding a problem, pursuing tar pit ideas, and either rushing into the first idea or waiting for a perfect one. He uses an app for coordinating meetups with friends as a tar pit example, since many founders have tried it without overcoming its structural challenges. He recommends researching earlier attempts and learning what made them difficult.

Jared offers ten questions for assessing an idea, starting with founder-market fit: whether the team is suited to the work. He also considers market size and growth, how urgently customers need a solution, competition, recent changes that create opportunities, and whether the business can scale. PlanGrid, Coinbase, Brex, and Checkr illustrate different parts of the framework.

Jared argues that ideas can look unattractive because they are hard to start, boring, or already have competitors. Stripe faced difficult bank and payment infrastructure work, while Gusto tackled payroll and Dropbox entered a crowded file storage market with a better user experience. Existing products can signal demand and reveal gaps to address.

Jared says many strong ideas arise organically from expertise and experience, rather than from brainstorming in the abstract. For founders searching now, he recommends starting with their team's strengths or personally observed problems, then exploring recent changes, successful business models, and broken industries. AtoB's founders studied trucking by speaking with drivers and experienced founders before choosing fuel cards.

Jared closes by saying that frameworks cannot establish for certain whether an idea will work. Founders often need to launch and see how customers respond.