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🎯evaluating startup ideas

startup ideas are hard to come by, but evaluating them is even harder. this is a collection of resources that will help you evaluate your startup ideas.

source: startup school lectures

common ideation failures

  • don't start without a problem

  • don't go over tarpit ideas, they from possible but is

note tarpit ideas are ideas that seem easy to solve, but really are near impossible to solve, which is why they haven't been solved yet.

  • don't wait for the perfect idea (perfect ideas don't exist)

  • don't miss to research and evaluate your idea thoroughly

how to evaluate your idea

note this section contains accordian/dropdown questions, the dropdown menus open to show how to answer these

q: are you the perfect team to make this? (founder-market fit)

a common way to answer this is to look at the previous experiences/skill sets of your founders if you are building software to improve the analysis of historic things, having someone who has a background in archaeology and development helps

q: how big is the market?

there are two types of markets: 1. one that is already huge 2. one that according to you is gonna be huge soon (is rapidly growing)

q: do you have competition?

1. if yes, rest assured your idea is probably super great that is the reason 2. if yes but you have a lot of competition, you need to find a unique selling proposition for your startup 3. if yes but the competitor is not doing well in your area/region of interest, eg: food delivery in places where doordash doesn't do well or doesn't exist, other companies (eg: zomato) get that opportunity and also have someone to look upto and be cautious of that someone's mistakes 4. if no, is it because the solution has been possible recently? if it was possible in the past too, it is possibly a tarpit idea, so be careful

q: do you want this?

yes? then work on it hell yeah! no? then find someone who might want it don't find someone who wants it? probably won't find enough users

q: would you work on this for years?

this is one is pretty obvious lmao

q: is this scalable?

if you building software, then it is a simple yes, no questioning needed.

q: is this a good idea space?

idea space is simply the market/tools that are related to that idea simply put, do you think that in your market, there will be a boom of growth or som'n where you can grow?

good things to notice in your ideas

  • does it have a hard barrier of entry or is it a very boring market? if yes you will have less competition (good for you)

  • if you have any existing competitors then it probably means your idea rules the market 👑

  • is your idea organic? if yes it is probably one of the coolest ones out there

  • if your idea is not perfect but it is in a very fertile market (in need of a lot of innovation) you will find a lot of issues to fix, and you could pivot your idea to fixing those issues

source

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