How to have more ideas
A framework for creativity and startups
Since I started this journey of “doing a startup every week”, I often get asked how do you come up with so many ideas? I guess I’m just a creative person. But I hope to share my secret here so that you might also.
Background
Back in 2017, something changed in the way that I saw the world. I remember the moment exactly. I was at a gas station and paying for my gas. I looked at the take-a-penny-leave-a-penny tray and thought “why is it always empty? shouldn’t they just stock it full of pennies or just take it off the counter?”. From that moment on, I couldn’t stop seeing the world in terms of unsolved problems. Something in my mind broke and I couldn’t fix it. Not to say that this is necessarily a bad thing… But it did stress me out. I couldn’t stop seeing the world this way.
Up until then, I had always been a creative person. My creative skill is in music. I am also very curious and into deep philosophical concepts. I think I had never really been challenged and for the first time, I was unlocking a part of my brain that is deeply entrepreneurial and resourceful.
I eventually developed this mindset into a conceptual framework. I still see the world as a set of unsolved problems, and for every problem there is a solution. There is an infinite set of problems, but there is an order to them. The universe presents these challenges to us when we are ready. I don’t mean this in some cosmic spiritual way, I mean that knowledge and ideas stack and compound over time. For example, consider how to develop cars we needed to first invent metallurgy and petrochemical engineering. We are always dealing with the frontier of unsolved problems, but once they are solved we will find new ones until the universe burns out.
I also believe, like Elon Musk says, that given there are an infinite amount of problems to solve, one can go mad just considering the endless and futile nature of this endeavor. Why solve problems at all if they are simply going to get replaced by new problems? I think the answer is because it brings us purpose, community, emotional connection, and experiences that actually matter. I do also believe that we will reach a plateau in terms of the problems we humans can actually solve. Most of our understanding of physics is based on our ability to measure light and other things. There are probably forces, like gravity, that we can’t really measure, thus limiting our ability to understand, reason, and problem-solve about. But this is for another time.
This way of looking at the world is a dual-edged sword. On the one hand, it’s great because everything is an opportunity. On the other, it’s cognitively demanding because I can’t shut it off. Meditation helps refocus my mind onto things that normal people like and can relate to, but that too takes practice. For this reason, I’ve always felt somewhat out of place. It doesn’t necessarily make good first-date or party conversation.
I started to apply this kind of thinking by making things, i.e. trying to solve some of the problems myself. This has helped me refine my thinking further. I failed at a few startups and when I did a retrospective to figure out what went wrong, I discovered Product Management, the science of figuring out what customers want and how to build it. My friend also says it’s “how startups built products that people love”, which I like. I fell in love, because here was a whole field of study dedicated to this type of thinking. It was a lightbulb moment for me and I felt like this career had been built for me. I then spent several years building products professionally and got a little lost. I forgot why I got into it. It was only recently that I rediscovered the joy of creating new products, rather than growing existing successful products. And here we are.
Mindset
So Adam, thanks for the background, but how do I actually cultivate this mindset?
I think it comes down to:
Building awareness,
Seeing problems as opportunities, and
Identifying as a person who has lots of ideas and sees the world this way.
First, in terms of awareness, you have to start by noticing the world around you. What frustrates you? Where do most of your minor inconveniences come from? This is a tall order, since most people ever get to the point of acknowledging that there is a detached state we call awareness, where you’re able to look at your life as an objective outside observer would. Assuming you can get there, just observe your life. It can be little things or big things.
I must warn you: back to my earlier point of there being an infinite amount of unsolved problems, this will probably cause you a lot of stress. The trick to keeping your sanity is realizing that you don’t have to do anything about it. Sure, you can fool yourself into thinking that you can control everything, but that only works for a while. There are things that you can control too. But, the most helpful thing I’ve found is to “pick my battles” and acknowledge “yes, everything is broken but I don’t have to do anything about it if I don’t want to”. The true skill to master here is knowing which problems you want to solve and that you’re uniquely positioned to actually do something about. Also, I believe, contrary to most stuff you’ll read online, that it’s better to get “hits on bat than homeruns”. Being an ambitious person, I really empathize with wanting to go big, but it’s caused me a lot of stress, largely because I’m trying to take on things that I can’t fully control. Jeff Bezos says that the cause of stress is not taking action on something that you can control, which I think fits in here perfectly.
Once you develop awareness, you then need to start seeing problems as opportunities. Every time you see a problem, acknowledge it and try to think of what would solve that problem. If you can think of a solution, there’s a business opportunity. It doesn’t necessarily need to be a business, it can be a meetup or something that provides non-monetizable value to people. Communities and networks are the best example.
Lastly, you can start identifying as a creative person who 1) has awareness, and 2) sees problems as opportunities. The more you tell yourself this, the more you condition your mind to think this way. Your personality eventually integrates this identity into your behaviors and habits.
Habits
Once you’ve developed the right mindset, you can focus on building effective and scalable habits for managing your ideas. Here’s a list of habits you can try out:
Force yourself to think creatively by asking yourself “what is the most creative way to look at this?”
When you have ideas, note them down in a notepad and organize them later.
If you need ideas but they aren’t coming out: go for a walk, do something hard, meditate, or take a shower. Do anything else, it doesn’t really matter. Ideas come when you don’t force them.
Read a wide variety of materials, follow your genuine curiosity. If you want a new idea, read an old book.
Keep a notepad by your bed, try your best to write down dreams immediately after you wake up. This might not translate directly to tangible ideas, but I find dreams often contain a hidden message from our subconscious that we need to decipher. I try to focus more on the meta lesson or the emotional context of the dream, using it as a guide for what to do in the conscious realm.
Do stuff. Try actually building something. You will encounter more problems, which is a source of inspiration.
Just get started. You will likely procrastinate and this will stress you out.
Practice often.
Systems
Now that you have the mindset and habits, you will need a system to manage them effectively. Without it, you will quickly get distracted and feel stressed out. I use Notion to organize my ideas. Let me describe the components and process.
Components
Create the following 3 databases in Notion:
Reading List: A database of whatever you’re consuming like podcasts, articles, etc.
My Links: A database of websites you want to revisit.
Ideas Tracker: A database of business ideas.
Content Database: A database of content ideas.
Process
When I start a new podcast, for example, I share it to Notion using the Share feature in Spotify (or whatever podcast player you’re using) and store it in the Reading List database. I will periodically review that later for inspiration.
When I find a cool website, instead of letting 23,349,851 tabs open in chrome, I also share it to Notion using the Share feature and store it to My Links.
When I have a new idea, I just open the Notion mobile app and create a note to store the idea quickly. I let them pile up and then eventually move them over to Ideas Tracker, so that I can organize them further. I have different ways of categorizing ideas based on their readiness to be worked on. Right now I have over 100 ideas for startups that I can pull from at any time and I probably add one or two a day.
For ideas for blog posts on Substack or Tweets, I also just open the Notion mobile app, create a note, let them pile up, and then move them over to the Content Database. From there, I will periodically go into Substack or X and create drafts for each. Later on, when I come back to the drafts page, I get prompted to work on them further and eventually post them. Right now, I have 47 drafts in Substack that I’m planning to get to eventually.