Solve a problem to find new ideas

This is a creative method on how to find an idea by solving a problem. Solving a problem you have is a great way to find a new idea. If you have a problem, hopefully a number of other people have the same problem.

But it may sometimes be hard to know which problems you have, so why not let someone else decide what you should create? It is often hard to find out what you need and what you are irritated at. That is why you should ask other people.

  1. Twitter search

    Click on the link above to search Twitter or search Twitter for:

  2. Jig

    A service where people can post their needs. Find a need and solve it.

  3. Listen to the news

    Listen to the news, talk-shows or any discussion between people. People love to complain and every complaint is a possible idea.

Example

A Twitter Search for "i need" resulted in the following:

  1. Dear Twitter, sometimes I need more than 140 characters to describe what's on my mind. Sincerely, everyone.

    Business idea: Create a Twitter with more characters

  2. What's happening?! I need to find some motivation...f***.....I'll start with food I guess

    Business idea: Create a company helping people find motivation

Hotmail: The founders got frustrated because their employer's firewall prevented them from accessing their personal email accounts. To solve their problem, they came up with the idea of email accounts that could be accessed anonymously through a web browser.

"A great way to build software is to start out by solving your own problems. You'll be the target audience and you'll know what's important and what's not. That gives you a great head start on delivering a breakout product."

- 37Signals

20000 needs

This is a collection of 20000 tweets with the word "I need" in it. They have been sorted and the most common word in the tweets is at the top. If you find an interesting word, you can click on it, and 5 tweets with the word in it will be displayed. Click on the box again to close the box.

But this method does not always work

"A lot of companies ask their users what they want by using feedback and focus groups. One can not innovate by asking a focus group what they want - they do not know what they want. User groups are not suited to technology innovation."

- Steve Jobs


"If I'd asked my customers what they wanted, they'd have said a faster horse."

- Henry Ford