You Don't Need To Start With A Great Idea

People think they need a good idea from the jump. They look at people with good ideas as idea factories — visionaries who just sit there dreaming up brilliant concepts all day. That does happen. Some personality types are natural idea generators. But that's not the whole story.

The idea you start with is just a spark. A seed. The final, fully formed thing is almost never where you started. It takes many iterations from idea to business — each stage bringing refinement, pivoting, new ideas layered on top — before you get to the last one. The one that looks like a great idea.

It probably wasn't to begin with. It was just something with potential. Then you worked with it, moulded it, and kept kneading it like dough to make it into bread.

Don't be put off if you aren't an ideas factory. The truth is, you just need a sort of very broad, rough beginning of something that's like an idea. It may just be a passion, an inkling, following curiosity — which becomes the idea, which becomes more.

You just keep pulling on the thread to see where it leads.