Organic Startup Ideas

<img src="http://www.virtumundo.com/images/spacer.gif" height=15 width=1> Want to start a startup?

<img src="http://www.virtumundo.com/images/spacer.gif" height=15 width=1> 想要创业吗？

Get funded by Y Combinator .

获得 Y Combinator 的资助。

</td > April 2010 The best way to come up with startup ideas is to ask yourself the question: what do you wish someone would make for you?

</td> 2010 年 4 月 提出创业想法的最佳方法是问自己这样一个问题：您希望有人为您做什么？

There are two types of startup ideas: those that grow organically out of your own life, and those that you decide, from afar, are going to be necessary to some class of users other than you.

有两种类型的创业想法：一种是从你自己的生活中有机地成长出来的，另一种是你从远处决定对除你之外的某些类别的用户来说是必要的。

Apple

苹果

was the first type.

是第一种。

Apple happened because Steve Wozniak wanted a computer.

苹果的诞生是因为史蒂夫·沃兹尼亚克想要一台电脑。

Unlike most people who wanted computers, he could design one, so he did.

与大多数想要计算机的人不同，他可以设计一台计算机，所以他做到了。

And since lots of other people wanted the same thing, Apple was able to sell enough of them to get the company rolling.

由于许多其他人也想要同样的东西，苹果公司能够销售足够多的产品来推动公司发展。

They still rely on this principle today, incidentally.

顺便说一句，他们今天仍然依赖这个原则。

The iPhone is the phone Steve Jobs wants.

iPhone 是史蒂夫·乔布斯想要的手机。

[ 1 ] Our own startup, Viaweb, was of the second type.

[1] 我们自己的初创公司 Viaweb 属于第二种类型。

We made software

我们做了软件

for building online stores.

用于建立在线商店。

We didn't need this software ourselves.

我们自己不需要这个软件。

We weren't direct marketers.

我们不是直销商。

We didn't even know when we started that our users were called "direct marketers." But we were comparatively old when we started the company (I was 30 and Robert Morris was 29), so we'd seen enough to know users would need this type of software.

我们甚至不知道我们什么时候开始将我们的用户称为“直接营销人员”。但我们创办公司时年龄相对较大（我 30 岁，罗伯特·莫里斯 29 岁），因此我们已经了解了足够多的情况，知道用户需要此类软件。

[ 2 ] There is no sharp line between the two types of ideas, but

[2]这两种想法之间没有明显的界限，但是

the most successful startups seem to be closer to the Apple type than the Viaweb type.

最成功的初创公司似乎更接近苹果类型，而不是 Viaweb 类型。

When he was writing that first Basic interpreter for the Altair, Bill Gates was writing something he would use, as were Larry and Sergey when they wrote the first versions of Google.

当比尔·盖茨为 Altair 编写第一个 Basic 解释器时，他正在编写他会使用的东西，拉里和谢尔盖在编写第一个版本的 Google 时也是如此。

Organic ideas are generally preferable to the made up kind, but particularly so when the founders are young.

有机的想法通常比虚构的想法更可取，尤其是当创始人年轻时。

It takes experience to predict what other people will want.

需要经验来预测其他人想要什么。

The worst ideas we see at

我们看到的最糟糕的想法

Y Combinator are from young founders making things they think other people will want.

Y Combinator 来自年轻的创始人，他们制作他们认为其他人会想要的东西。

So if you want to start a startup and don't know yet what you're going to do, I'd encourage you to focus initially on organic ideas.

因此，如果您想创办一家初创公司，但还不知道要做什么，我鼓励您首先关注有机想法。

What's missing or broken in your daily life?

您的日常生活中缺少或破坏了什么？

Sometimes if you just ask that question you'll get immediate answers.

有时，如果你问这个问题，你会立即得到答案。

It must have seemed obviously broken to Bill Gates that you could only program the

对于比尔·盖茨来说，你只能对

Altair in machine language.

机器语言中的 Altair。

You may need to stand outside yourself a bit to see brokenness, because you tend to get used to it and take it for granted.

你可能需要站在自己之外一点才能看到破碎，因为你往往会习惯它并认为这是理所当然的。

You can be sure it's there, though.

不过，您可以确定它就在那里。

There are always great ideas sitting right under our noses.

总有一些伟大的想法就在我们眼皮子底下。

In 2004 it was ridiculous that Harvard undergrads were still using a Facebook printed on paper.

2004 年，哈佛本科生仍在使用纸质 Facebook，这是可笑的。

Surely that sort of thing should have been online.

当然，这种事情应该是在线的。

There are ideas that obvious lying around now.

现在有一些显而易见的想法。

The reason you're

你的原因是

overlooking them is the same reason you'd have overlooked the idea of building Facebook in 2004: organic startup ideas usually don't seem like startup ideas at first.

忽视它们与你忽视 2004 年创建 Facebook 的想法的原因是一样的：有机的创业想法通常乍一看并不像创业想法。

We know now that Facebook was very successful, but put yourself back in 2004.

我们现在知道 Facebook 非常成功，但让我们回到 2004 年。

Putting undergraduates' profiles online wouldn't have seemed like much of a startup idea.

将本科生的个人资料放到网上似乎不太像是一个创业想法。

And in fact, it wasn't initially a startup idea.

事实上，这最初并不是一个创业想法。

When Mark spoke at a YC dinner this winter he said he wasn't trying to start a

当马克今年冬天在 YC 晚宴上讲话时，他说他并不是想开始一个

company when he wrote the first version of Facebook.

当他编写 Facebook 的第一个版本时。

It was just a project.

这只是一个项目。

So was the Apple I when Woz first started working on it.

当沃兹第一次开始研究 Apple I 时，也是如此。

He didn't think he was starting a company.

他并不认为自己是在创办一家公司。

If these guys had thought they were starting companies, they might have been tempted to do something more "serious," and that would have been a mistake.

如果这些人认为他们正在创办公司，他们可能会想做一些更“严肃”的事情，那将是一个错误。

So if you want to come up with organic startup ideas, I'd encourage you to focus more on the idea part and less on the startup part.

因此，如果你想提出有机的创业想法，我鼓励你更多地关注想法部分，而不是创业部分。

Just fix things that seem broken, regardless of whether it seems like the problem is important enough to build a company on.

只要修复那些看起来有问题的东西，不管这个问题是否重要到足以建立一家公司。

If you keep pursuing such threads it would be hard not to end up making something of value to a lot of people, and when you do, surprise, you've got a company.

如果你继续追求这样的线索，最终很难不做出对很多人有价值的东西，当你这样做时，令人惊讶的是，你已经拥有了一家公司。

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