You find ten people in an industry, you ask them what sorts of problems they have, or whether and for what they're using Microsoft Excel. If four or five (or better yet all of 'em) have the same problem, or use Excel for the same purpose, you build software that solves the problem or replaces Excel.
In a vacuum, your ideas are things that you can come up with. Maybe they're problems you have, but those problems might not be problems you're willing to spend money to solve. Often the 'idea' is something you as a founder think will be credible, and you end up with a "sitcom startup" (http://www.paulgraham.com/startupideas.html), something that might come from a writer's room.
I've never built a startup. I worked at a consulting firm that took money in exchange for building the software that some sitcom startups tried and failed to use, and I've worked at two successful venture-backed startups that followed the pattern of finding a problem and trying to solve it.
You find ten people in an industry, you ask them what sorts of problems they have, or whether and for what they're using Microsoft Excel. If four or five (or better yet all of 'em) have the same problem, or use Excel for the same purpose, you build software that solves the problem or replaces Excel.
In a vacuum, your ideas are things that you can come up with. Maybe they're problems you have, but those problems might not be problems you're willing to spend money to solve. Often the 'idea' is something you as a founder think will be credible, and you end up with a "sitcom startup" (http://www.paulgraham.com/startupideas.html), something that might come from a writer's room.
I've never built a startup. I worked at a consulting firm that took money in exchange for building the software that some sitcom startups tried and failed to use, and I've worked at two successful venture-backed startups that followed the pattern of finding a problem and trying to solve it.