From How to Get Startup Ideas · 5 notesNoteExampleDemo
Paul Buchheit says that people at the leading edge of a rapidly changing field "live in the future." Combine that with Pirsig and you get:
Live in the future, then build what's missing.1
And when these problems get solved, they will probably seem flamingly obvious in retrospect. What you need to do is turn off the filters that usually prevent you from seeing them. The most powerful is simply taking the current state of the world for granted2. Even the most radically open-minded of us mostly do that. You couldn't get from your bed to the front door if you stopped to question everything.
But if you're looking for startup ideas you can sacrifice some of the efficiency of taking the status quo for granted and start to question things. Why is your inbox overflowing?3 Because you get a lot of email, or because it's hard to get email out of your inbox? Why do you get so much email? What problems are people trying to solve by sending you email? Are there better ways to solve them? And why is it hard to get emails out of your inbox? Why do you keep emails around after you've read them? Is an inbox the optimal tool for that?
Pay particular attention to things that chafe you.4 The advantage of taking the status quo for granted is not just that it makes life (locally) more efficient, but also that it makes life more tolerable. If you knew about all the things we'll get in the next 50 years but don't have yet, you'd find present day life pretty constraining, just as someone from the present would if they were sent back 50 years in a time machine. When something annoys you, it could be because you're living in the future5.
1Note
Use new tools early. What's missing becomes obvious.
2Note
"That's how the tool works" is the filter. Turn it off.
3Example
In your app: why do people export to CSV? What do they do in the spreadsheet?
4Note
Keep a list of what annoys you in the apps you use. Each one is a design problem.