The best startup ideas seem at first like bad ideas. I've written about this before: if a good idea were obviously good, someone else would already have done it. So the most successful founders tend to work on ideas that few beside them realize are good. Which is not that far from a description of insanity, till you reach the point where you see results.
The first time Peter Thiel spoke at YC he drew a Venn diagram that illustrates the situation perfectly. He drew two intersecting circles, one labelled "seems like a bad idea" and the other "is a good idea." The intersection is the sweet spot for startups.
This concept is a simple one and yet seeing it as a Venn diagram is illuminating. It reminds you that there is an intersection—that there are good ideas that seem bad. It also reminds you that the vast majority of ideas that seem bad are bad.
So there are a lot of ideas that seem good which ARE good but maybe are just hard to execute or extremely competitive (i.e. Google or the iTunes store), there are a lot of ideas that seem bad which ARE bad (e.g. most startups), and there is an intersecting sweet spot in the middle, of good ideas that seem really bad in the beginning (Airbnb, the iPad, etc.). I think that is what Derek is referring to and this Venn diagram approach should hopefully clear up a lot of the "How do I know I'm actually right/wrong then?" confusion in this discussion.
The best startup ideas seem at first like bad ideas. I've written about this before: if a good idea were obviously good, someone else would already have done it. So the most successful founders tend to work on ideas that few beside them realize are good. Which is not that far from a description of insanity, till you reach the point where you see results.
The first time Peter Thiel spoke at YC he drew a Venn diagram that illustrates the situation perfectly. He drew two intersecting circles, one labelled "seems like a bad idea" and the other "is a good idea." The intersection is the sweet spot for startups.
This concept is a simple one and yet seeing it as a Venn diagram is illuminating. It reminds you that there is an intersection—that there are good ideas that seem bad. It also reminds you that the vast majority of ideas that seem bad are bad.
So there are a lot of ideas that seem good which ARE good but maybe are just hard to execute or extremely competitive (i.e. Google or the iTunes store), there are a lot of ideas that seem bad which ARE bad (e.g. most startups), and there is an intersecting sweet spot in the middle, of good ideas that seem really bad in the beginning (Airbnb, the iPad, etc.). I think that is what Derek is referring to and this Venn diagram approach should hopefully clear up a lot of the "How do I know I'm actually right/wrong then?" confusion in this discussion.