Tell HN: Read Maxim and other trashy "guy" rags.

Re:Tell HN: Read Maxim and other trashy "guy" rags. by DevX101 on Saturday October 02, 2010 @10:56PM (#1751961)

I think the broader point is that entrepreneurs should expose themselves to as many domains outside their comfort zones as possible. As hackers/entrepreneurs we're generally pretty good at seeing a solution to a problem. The issue is, that we don't see enough problems, because many of us are confined to a relatively narrow experiences many of which are echo chambers for what we're already interested in/agree with.

Why do you think there are SO MANY productivity apps? Because it's something programmers often need to work with to get shit done. Same for coding tools, etc etc...

Another example: just yesterday someone posted the report recommending an income tax receipt. Within 24 hours, there was a pretty neat app out for that. The issue wasn't that someone couldn't do it -- but that the 'need' wasn't previously well defined to people capable of solving that problem.

So get your ass out there. Find out problems and interests people unlike you have. Maybe you'll stumble upon your next big thing.

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Re:Tell HN: Read Maxim and other trashy "guy" rags. by jonhendry on Sunday October 03, 2010 @12:22AM (#1752067)

Exactly. If you think of your life as a problem space, adopting a new hobby or interest is a way of expanding that problem space.

Right now, maybe you're reasonably content with things in your life. You've explored your problem space and solved anything causing stupid problems. Add a hobby, and you increase your problem space, and you may find new itches, that you didn't have before, that need scratching (to mix metaphors).

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Re:Tell HN: Read Maxim and other trashy "guy" rags. by jayliew on Sunday October 03, 2010 @01:55PM (#1753185)

Recently I've set out on a quest to actively find new ideas; going as far as making it a goal to find one new idea a day (no matter how crazy, for the sake of flexing my brain and getting it better at stumbling on opportunities). This is as opposed to my previous method of passively reading about things and hoping that as things accumulate in my head, I will subconsciously one day while taking a shower have a eureka moment and think of an awesome idea (which does happen, just not as frequent as I would like).

I've found that by just sitting down and clearing my head and forcing myself to think really hard, trying to connect the dots half-baked ideas and just mixing it up with random thoughts, I've gotten a whole lot better at thinking up of ideas. Patrick (patio11)'s article about his not understanding why people complain they can't find ideas really gave me a good kick in the side and motivated me to do this: http://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/03/20/running-a-software-busin... and I do find his comment about "walking in a store to find what people buy" a great starting point! I also have this book which I recommend 'A Whack on the Side of the Head' http://amzn.to/bm6vW4 which certainly did literally help me look at ideas in a different light and generate new ideas.

As a part of my effort to just find new opportunities, I've been documenting meta-algorithms to find algorithms (if a business idea/model is an algorithm). An entry I just added is:

* Learn a new concept, algorithm, (e.g. 'Programming Collective Intelligence' http://amzn.to/cMLnKj), and apply it to some problem in a different field (e.g. non-technical things in real life, or things I use such as Facebook, Twitter, etc). <-- An example of this: I read up on Shazam's clever algorithm and tried to use that method to solve something else.

Does anyone else collect such meta algorithms?

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