Founders that have had liquidity: How would you go about finding your next high value problem to solve?

[dsdnods]

What I want to understand is whether the genesis for the successful iteration of your "idea" was very specific (e.g. "I am going to solve X for group Y"), if it was a function of deciding to solve any problem you could find for a specific group (e.g. "Group Y is interesting, I wonder what problem I could solve for them"), or if it was entirely unspecific (e.g. "Hmmm, I like solving problems...I wonder who has a problem I could solve?").

If none of the above are good characterizations of how you, for lack of better words, "come up with good ideas," what does it look like for you?

 

[nickolasss]

@dsdnods Very simple really... by order of priority as 1 being the easiest to build a startup around because you'll be your first customer and therefore understand the problem a lot better than if you weren't. Plus you can use the solution for yourself and be the first use case.

1. High Value Problems that I have in my business
2. High Value Problems that my clients have in their business
3. High Value Problems that my contacts have in their business

I built my SaaS based on a problem I had when I got to $100k in sales in a month on my marketing agency... customer acquisition was done on chat and took me a crazy amount of hours chatting to get enough leads/sales to hit $100k. I was selling only high ticket 4k-8k.

As such I built a tool that automated most of that work and allowed scaling cross platform. I was my first "client" then some of my clients also started using, eventually turned into a SaaS Startup in 2020.

Got to $1M ARR on the first year.

Few years later am now building the 2nd startup, again for high value problems that I have in my businesses... my clients also have them and people I know also have them. Easy peasy to get clients because everyone around me needs it.

 

[valueofliving]

@dsdnods Having a life-changing liquidity event means that your life is changed. Most of the people will spend their life till well into their 60s working because they need to. You don't have to do that. Stop thinking about the business you want to build and write down your personal ambitions. Why did you do what you did? What's important to you now? Questions like family, legacy, building, service are all possible answers. Next shape your life around that. Here's my list:

Must Have:

• household expenses met for the next 5-7 years