Questions to ask about a startup idea

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How to use this guide

Have a startup idea you’re not sure about? Considering a few ideas? These are some questions to ask yourself about a startup idea. Answering these may help you to suss out potential issues with your idea, and help you pick between different ideas.

Keep in mind that no startup idea is perfect. The objective with this list should not be to check every box - that’s impossible - but instead to help you find an idea that has enough interesting qualities to be a good starting point.

Many of these are the same as questions on the YC application. Filling out the YC application (whether or not you are ready to do YC) is a great way to flesh out your idea.

If you’re using this document, we highly recommend reading this essay by Paul Graham.

[You won’t be able to edit this document, so make a copy and then edit that one.]

使用指南

有不确定的创业想法？正在考虑一些想法？以下是一些关于创业想法的问题。回答这些问题可以帮助你找出想法中的潜在问题，并帮助你在不同的想法中做出选择。

请记住，没有一个创业想法是完美无缺的。这份清单的目的不应是勾选每一个方框--那是不可能的--而是帮助你找到一个具有足够有趣特质的想法，使其成为一个好的起点。

其中许多问题与YC 申请表上的问题相同。填写 YC 申请表（无论你是否准备好参加 YC）是充实你的想法的好方法。

如果您使用本文档，我们强烈推荐您阅读保罗-格雷厄姆（Paul Graham）的这篇文章。

[您将无法编辑此文档，因此请复制一份，然后再编辑那一份。］

Questions

问题集

1) Does your team have founder / market fit to work on this idea?

Founder/market fit means that your team is a good team to work on this particular idea. Typically this means you have previous experience working in the same field or you’ve personally encountered the problem.

您的团队是否与该创意的创始人/市场相匹配？

创始人/市场契合度是指你的团队是一个很好的团队，适合研究这个特定的想法。一般来说，这意味着你以前在同一领域有过工作经验，或者你曾亲自遇到过这个问题。

2) How big is the market for this idea today?

The basic approach here is to calculate an addressable market by multiplying how many users you could get by how much money you could make per user. However, this can be hard for certain ideas. It’s often better to think about existing proxies for your product and how big they are.

For example, if you were starting Instacart, your proxy would be the size of the existing grocery business - which without needing to do any calculations would tell you this is an obviously huge opportunity.

如今这个创意的市场有多大？

这里的基本方法是计算可寻址市场，即用你能获得多少用户乘以每个用户能赚多少钱。不过，这对某些创意来说可能很难。通常，更好的办法是考虑你的产品的现有替代品以及它们的规模。

例如，如果你要创办 Instacart，你的替代品就是现有的杂货业务规模--不需要做任何计算，你就会知道这显然是一个巨大的机会。

2b) How big could it be in a few years?

Some of the best markets for startups are markets that are tiny today but growing explosively. Note that a market typically needs to be growing 50% / year or more to be growing “explosively”. For example, Coinbase went after the bitcoin market in 2012 when it was still tiny, but it was obvious that it could be huge eventually.

几年后会有多大规模？

对于初创企业来说，一些最好的市场就是那些目前规模很小，但正在爆炸式增长的市场。需要注意的是，一个市场通常需要每年增长 50% 或更多，才能达到 "爆炸式 "增长。例如，Coinbase 在 2012 年进入比特币市场，当时比特币市场还很小，但很明显，它最终会成为一个巨大的市场。

3) What is the problem you hope this product will solve? Have you seen this problem first hand? How are confident are you that it’s actually a problem? For your users, how acute and frequent is the problem?

The most common failure mode for startup ideas is that they aren’t solving an acute enough problem. A common case is a problem that a lot of people have, but only care about a little, or only encounter infrequently.

您希望该产品能解决什么问题？你亲眼见过这个问题吗？你有多大把握认为这确实是个问题？对于你的用户来说，这个问题有多严重、多频繁？

初创企业最常见的失败模式就是没有解决足够尖锐的问题。所谓常见问题，就是很多人都有，但只关心一点点，或者只是不经常遇到的问题。

4) Do you have entrenched competition? If so, how will you beat them?

Counter-intuitively, most of the best startup ideas already have competitors, and founders incorrectly shy away from spaces with competitors. It’s often a bigger reason to worry if you have zero competitors - that may mean that there is no need for this product (a SISP). If your competitors are new or don’t have much marketshare, you can often just ignore them.

But if you are going up against an entrenched competitor (i.e., you want to beat Google at web search), you’re going to need a specific strategy to do that.

你有根深蒂固的竞争对手吗？如果有，你将如何打败他们？

与直觉相反，大多数最好的初创公司创意都已经有了竞争对手，而创始人却错误地回避有竞争对手的空间。如果你的竞争对手为零，往往更值得担心--这可能意味着根本不需要这种产品（SISP）。如果你的竞争对手是新公司或市场份额不大，你通常可以忽略他们。

但是，如果你的竞争对手根深蒂固（例如，你想在网络搜索方面打败谷歌），你就需要制定具体的战略来实现这一目标。

5) Is this something you personally want and would use?

If so, it’s a good sign.

这是你个人想要并会使用的东西吗？

如果是，这是个好兆头。

5b) If not, do you personally know users who want this product?

If neither you nor anyone you know personally would use this product, then it’s probably hard to say if people want it. You should talk to some actual users before moving forward.

如果没有，您个人是否认识需要此产品的用户？

如果你和你认识的人都不会使用这种产品，那么就很难说人们是否需要这种产品。你应该先与一些实际用户谈谈，然后再向前推进。

6) Did this idea only recently become possible, or only recently become necessary?

If so, that’s a good sign. Many of the best startup ideas couldn’t have been started a few years earlier. For example, Doordash (food delivery) became possible because smartphone penetration of potential drivers reached a critical mass. Checkr (background checks as an API) became necessary because services like Doordash and Uber were taking off and needed to run background checks on their drivers.

这个想法是最近才成为可能还是最近才成为必要？

如果是，这是个好兆头。许多优秀的初创企业的想法在几年前都无法实现。例如，Doordash（送餐服务）之所以成为可能，是因为潜在司机的智能手机普及率达到了临界质量。 Checkr（作为应用程序接口的背景调查）之所以成为必要，是因为Doordash和Uber等服务正在起飞，需要对司机进行背景调查。

6b) If not, why has no one solved it before?

If this is a problem that has been around for a long time, and that a lot of people likely to start companies are familiar with, you might have waded into a dreaded “tarpit idea”. If so, you should look into previous attempts to solve this problem and try to figure out why they haven’t succeeded. Good reason why no one might have solved this before include: “it seemed hard, so it likely scared off other people”, or “I have a new insight into the solution that others likely didn’t have”, or “not many people who start companies are likely aware of the problem”.

如果不是，为什么以前没有人解决？

如果这是一个存在已久的问题，而且很多有可能创办公司的人都熟悉这个问题，那么你可能已经涉足了一个可怕的 "创意陷阱"。如果是这样，你应该研究一下以前解决这个问题的尝试，并试图找出他们没有成功的原因。以前没有人解决这个问题的好理由包括 "这似乎很难，所以很可能吓跑了其他人"，或者 "我对解决方案有新的见解，而其他人可能没有"，或者 "创办公司的人可能没有多少意识到这个问题 "。

7) What are the proxies - large, successful companies that do something similar to this?

Most new successful companies have proxies - existing companies that serve the same or a similar market. For example, Rappi (food delivery in LATAM) could look at food delivery companies in the US and China to immediately know that a similar opportunity likely exists in LATAM. Gusto (modern payroll software) could look at existing payroll companies to know that it was a big market.

有哪些替代品--与此类似的成功大公司？

大多数成功的新公司都有替代公司--服务于相同或类似市场的现有公司。例如，Rappi（拉丁美洲和加勒比海地区的食品配送公司）可以通过考察美国和中国的食品配送公司，立即了解到拉丁美洲和加勒比海地区也可能存在类似的机会。 Gusto（现代薪资管理软件）可以从现有的薪资管理公司中了解到这是一个很大的市场。

8) Is this a problem that you personally care about? Is it something that you would be willing to work on for a long time?

The answer doesn’t have to be “yes” right now. Often problems “grow on” founders over time, particularly once their company starts to succeed, but if you can start with a problem you really care about, that’s even better. See this video about this.

这是你个人关心的问题吗？这是否是你愿意长期解决的问题？

答案不一定是 "是"。随着时间的推移，尤其是公司开始取得成功后，问题往往会 "成长 "起来，但如果你能从自己真正关心的问题入手，那就更好了。请参阅本视频。

9) Can your solution scale? Could this be a consulting business in disguise?

Typically, consulting or services businesses aren’t great businesses because they are difficult to scale. This sometimes looks like a B2B business where you have to customize the product a lot for each customer. Other kinds of businesses that can be hard to scale are ones with physical real-world components. Sometimes evaluating this is subtle - to make it tricky, you often want to intentionally do things that don’t scale to get ideas started, but at the same time you want to pick ideas that are fundamentally scalable.

您的解决方案可以扩展吗？这会是变相的咨询业务吗？

通常情况下，咨询或服务业务并不是什么好生意，因为它们难以扩展。这有时看起来像 B2B 业务，你必须为每个客户定制大量产品。其他难以扩展的业务类型是那些在现实世界中具有实体组成部分的业务。有时，对这一点的评估是很微妙的--为了使其变得棘手，你往往想故意做一些无法扩展的事情来启动创意，但同时你又想挑选那些从根本上可以扩展的创意。

10) Is this idea in a good “idea space”?

Idea spaces (i.e., “data infrastructure tools”, “social networks”, “software for hospitals”) tend to have either high or low hit rates in any given period. How have companies in a similar idea space done recently?

这个创意是否处于良好的 "创意空间"？

创意空间（如 "数据基础工具"、"社交网络"、"医院软件"）在任何特定时期的命中率往往有高有低。类似创意空间的公司近期表现如何？

11) How did you come up with this idea? Did you start with the problem or the solution?

All else being equal, ideas you had “organically” are more likely to be good than ones that came out of trying to think of a startup idea. Ideas that came out of a problem you saw are more likely to be good than ones that started with the solution.

你是如何想到这个创意的？你是从问题出发还是从解决方案出发？

在其他条件相同的情况下，你 "自然而然 "产生的想法比那些试图想出创业点子的想法更有可能成为好点子。从你看到的问题中产生的想法比从解决方案开始的想法更有可能成为好想法。

12) Do you have a new insight about this idea, one that few others have?

A new insight could be that you’ve discovered a problem not many people know about (or at least, not many people likely to start companies). Or it could be a novel way of approaching a well-known problem.

你对这个想法是否有新的见解，别人很少有的见解？

新见解可能是你发现了一个没有多少人知道的问题（或者至少没有多少人可能创办公司）。或者，它可能是解决一个众所周知的问题的新颖方法。

13) What are the current alternatives that people use instead of your product? Why will people switch to your product? How difficult will it be to get them to switch?

Think about the switching costs for people to adopt the solution. Some ideas die because there’s too much friction for people to adopt them. Are the alternatives “good enough”?

目前人们使用的替代产品是什么？人们为什么要改用你的产品？让他们改用你的产品有多难？

思考人们采用解决方案的转换成本。有些想法之所以夭折，是因为人们采用这些想法时遇到的阻力太多。替代方案是否 "足够好"？

14) How will you make money?

While there are exceptions, most good ideas have an obvious business model from the start.

你将如何赚钱？

虽然也有例外，但大多数好创意从一开始就有明显的商业模式。

15) If this the kind of business that has a chicken-and-egg problem (i.e., a marketplace, a dating site), how will you solve it?

For businesses like this, solving the chicken-and-egg problem is typically the most difficult part, and your solution is an essential component of the idea. If you’re starting this kind of business, here is a good book to read.

如果这种企业存在先有鸡还是先有蛋的问题（如市场、交友网站），你将如何解决？

对于这类企业来说，解决鸡生蛋蛋生鸡的问题通常是最困难的部分，而你的解决方案是创意的重要组成部分。如果你正在创办这类企业，这里有一本好书值得一读。

感悟

针对这15条，每个idea在被立项之初就要进行轮番的提问，直到思考清楚了，在决定去做。

自我左右互搏，才能让思考更彻底，这样从一个点切入，同时赛道上其他的竞争对手还不足以造成危险，自身团队也能够切合这个市场，这个是很不容易的。