SIGNAL//SYNTH
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How To Pick A Startup Idea

aired Jun 17, 2026 · 11.0m
Signal
82.1/ 100
High signal
confidence 0.99
Orig51.2
Actn91.0
Dens100.0
Dpth91.0
Clty63.2
Summary

Hi, I'm John and I'm a partner at YC. I often meet founders who have lots of ideas about what to work on and can't decide between them.

Why listen

It goes beyond the title with direct discussion of idea, actually, you're, including: I often meet founders who have lots of ideas about what to work on and can't decide between them.

Key takeaways
  1. 01A non-technical founder likely won't be the right person to come up with a killer DevTools startup idea, for example
  2. 02This could mean changing your company's name, your emails, your website, and even your internal narrative about why you're building a startup in the first place
  3. 03The high watermark I use to help founders answer this question is could you actually run your customer's business?
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