Coming up with unique ideas has been something I’ve spent years wondering how to do.
I think a lack of ideas is what paralyzes most people from starting a business, a YouTube channel, or whatever endeavor they’re interested in.
I’ve known for years I want to ship a software product but never bothered building anything because I didn’t have any “good ideas”.
I’ve come to realize that this method of waiting for inspiration will never work.
I believe the best projects to work on involve building something you desperately want and have experience with.
I remember hearing things like ‘solve your own problems’ but dismissed the advice because it seemed to simple.
Trying to come up with ideas or problems you struggle with on the fly is a losing strategy.
The only way I’ve found to consistently generate unique ideas is to get in the habit of writing them down.
Any time I get annoyed with a product or have a problem running my business, I jot down the problem and think of the simplest way to solve it.
Every night I try to reflect on the day and just focus on what problems I encountered.
Being OK with writing down the worst ideas I can come up with is a prerequisite to finding good ideas.
Of my current ideas I consider ‘good’, they’re all rather simple.
This is incredibly important - nearly all massive companies today started as a niche tool the founders created because they were annoyed with something.
In addition to writing down the ideas I come up with, actually building the smallest of them to flex my ‘building muscle’ has been valuable.
Just yesterday I spent an hour writing a simple app (the repo in case you're curious) that sends me a Slack message when I’m sent data from Stripe during development because I got annoyed that I would lose this data if I forgot to have my backend environment running.
The best ideas are found in the places you haven’t been yet.
After 3 months of using the M4 Max MacBook, I made a video sharing my development experience with it.
This is the first video in a while I’ve done A-roll and I really missed it. I’m trying to switch up the style this year so I hope you enjoy.
links to valuable stuff I thought was worth sharing
curated.design - A design inspiration site a friend send the other day. Tons of great designs on here that I’ve already taken some inspiration from.
How to Stop Procrastinating and Finally Take Action - A great video from Ali Abdaal. Asking yourself what you fear is my biggest takeaway. Oftentimes it’s the fear of judgement by people who don’t actually care
Six stages of a good software engineer - I’ve been watching a lot of Hussein’s videos recently. He explains backend concepts incredibly well.
Fundamentals of Backend Engineering - A udemy course from Hussein I’ve been going through. Super valuable.
Have a great week.
Cole
P.S. If you found this letter helpful, please consider sharing it with a friend :)
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