On Ideas

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You’ve probably been coming up with ideas your whole life. Have you ever asked what are ideas? And, how do they come about? 🧵 on ideas: 1/

What are Ideas? Simply put, Ideas are new ways of linking problems with solutions. They could also be a recombination of multiple existing solutions to create solutions that “look like new”. 2/

The general conception is that ideas are hidden in a special, closed space. This leads us to continuously search for ideas. 3/

Creating three frequent behavioural patterns, 1. Waiting to be lucky: “I’ll just watch this TV series until a great idea comes to me” – It won’t! 2. Genius: Problem at hand → Excellent skillset → Idea for a solution (or directly a working solution - rare) 4/

3. Exploration: Know the problem + Don’t know the solution → Let’s search for an answer 5/

Ideas are not found in nature. Inspirations and Problems are. Inspiration will give you probably directions that might lead to an idea. And, problems will seek the curiousness inside you to look for ideas that solve that problem. 6/

The best source of ideas is you yourself. (Thought Leader alert. 👀) That’s only half the truth though. The ideas you can have are defined and limited by your experiences. 7/

You can put a great marketer in front of a code problem – won’t solve the problem. Best case, you’ll give the devs some laughter fodder. 8/

You may ask, if “I’m” the best source of ideas why am I sitting blank? Good question! The answer is – to ask questions. The next time you find yourself in a peculiar situation, without any idea of how to move forward. Play around and ask “WHAT IF?” – time and again. 9/

Ideas are also largely derived from the usual “Trial and Error” approach. Do marketers always have the best idea on how to sell a product in the first go? In most cases, no. So, what do they do? – Trial and Error. 10/

So you see, it’s difficult to come up with ideas. But, not for “creative” people – who find it very easy to look for new. First, let’s try to define "creative". 11/

We tend to call someone creative if it's easy for them to create new ways of linking problems and solutions. Not everyone is creative, but they can be. Creativity and the ability to innovate goes up exponentially when one is exposed to more “inputs”. 12/

Consume rich and high-signal "inputs". This would expose you to new types of comprehensible information. Thus creating new thinking networks in your brain. I’ll just say one thing – choose your information diet carefully. 13/

Lack of reading, listening and watching are not the reasons we struggle to be creative. Comprehending what you read, listen and watch is. How to comprehend – as mentioned above – ask yourself “WHAT IF?” questions. Challenge the reasoning and see what comes about. 14/

• Reading one thread is enough if you can comprehend it • Listening to one podcast is enough if you can find the core message • Documentaries are dramatised real-life scenarios – watch them for fun, not for life lessons 15/

For Teams: Bring people from different backgrounds together to increase complementarity. But, not too different – that’ll create communication gaps. This way creativity becomes a team sport. A positive-sum sport. 16/

For Individuals: Add external inputs. • Education • Network ✨ • Content – remember to choose information over hooks 17/

You need to know ideas are often very different from what the eventual result is. A few famous examples – original ideas; • YouTube: First meant to upload videos for a dating website • Shopify: Was an online snowboarding gear store • Coca-Cola: Originally a medicine 18/

Wait a minute! Does this mean ideas aren’t necessarily the trigger for innovation? – Damn right, they’re not. Ideas just like humans evolve before they take their final. In fact, ideas that evolve are more likely to grow faster. (Source: Startup Genome) 19/

The most important external source of ideas is feedback. • Feedback from customers – existing & new • Internal feedback – teammates & company • Your interpretation of feedback – varies from person to person ( Ideas ↔ Feedback ) ➡️ Ideation ➡️ Implementation 20/

Eric Von Hippel at MIT said, “Many of the groundbreaking ideas didn’t come out of R&D departments but from user feedback on products and services.” That's the reason products aren't born with product-market fit. They find it gradually as they evolve with user feedback 21/

TLDR; • An idea by itself is an insight that “might” link a problem with its solution • Generating ideas = Creativity • More Inputs = More Creativity • Ideas become better with continuous feedback 22/

If you liked this thread, you'll love this one as well. 23/ twitter.com/adltyagaur/status/1501923102074286080