Taking inspiration from Paul Graham’s Ideas for Startups essay, Martin Zwilling offers some further thoughts—to wit, don’t start with an idea, start with a problem.
Potential startup founders are always looking for ideas to implement, when they should be looking for problems to solve. Customers pay for solutions, and there is no market for ideas. I’m often approached by people with a “million dollar idea,” but I haven’t seen anyone pay for one of these yet.