Most early stage founders know less about their market than they do about kahve fah, the traditional Ottoman practice of telling the future by looking at coffee grounds.
But at least the Ottomans make it interesting. Show them your Nana’s empty cup of Sanka and they’ll spin you a story about a pending ornithological adventure with a ravishing flight attendant from Duluth.
Ask a founder about their market’s problem and they’ll say “there are too many options when booking travel” or “solopreneurs need a way to stand out” or “acquisition costs are increasing because of increased competition.”
I mean, yeah, these things are true. But they’re not surprising. Hell, the flight attendant from Duluth knows these things and she’s not launching a startup. Then again, the Ottomans say she’ll be busy soon.
When someone's big observation is "AI can write (bog-standard) Tweets", does that set your thoughts reeling? Are you intrigued about the possibilities? No more than you wonder about the plot of the next Hallmark holiday movie — I get it, Amanda is going to come home from her fancy job in the big city and reconnect with her high-school ex and fall in love with small-town living.
If you start selling, or god forbid raising capital, without a single unique insight that makes a prospect sit back and say “Woah”, what the heck are we even doing here, man.
In a world where it's easier than ever to start a company, more people than ever are starting them. And they're all dull. Freaking commodity. Please, let me tell you how I'm going to disrupt your industry when I don't have one, single disruptive idea at present.
All the successful companies I've co-founded have had a disruptive core:
IGN: "Last year (1995) there were six videogame sites on the web. Now there are thousands. Someone should be selling ads for all of them." (h/t Jonathan Simpson-Bint)
MyBlogLog: "Cookies are worth pennies; profiles are worth dollars." (h/t Neil Scott Rafer)
Gnip: "Companies are spending more time keeping up with changing API polling rules than doing anything interesting with the data." (h/t me)
I don't know, maybe founders think Claude will come up with something after writing their launch announcement.
Y'all can do better. It just involves loads of curiosity and the ability to notice things that only manifest after the 50th customer discovery conversation, when Bob mentions something that ties into what Sally said last week after you brought up Raheem's observation from the week before.
Oh, you haven't talked to anyone and you're starting a company? Welcome to the first reel of every startup failure I've ever had, a series I call "I know absolutely nothing and I've asked my best friend to build an MVP."
Go talk to people. Go figure out something no one else knows, and absolutely blows minds when you say it.
And, Hallmark, WTF is a Hot Frosty?!?