Where Good Ideas Come From: Problems, Friction, Change & Connection

I do not sit down and tell myself to have an idea.

Most of the ideas I find interesting start with slowing down and noticing something.

A process is unnecessarily difficult. People keep complaining about the same thing. An industry works in a way that seems left over from another era. A new technology makes something possible at a fraction of the old cost. Two things that normally live in separate categories suddenly fit together.

That is why I think idea generation is mostly an attention problem.

The world is constantly telling us where the friction is. We just become used to it.

Notice the workaround

One of my favourite signals is a workaround.

If people are combining spreadsheets, email, screenshots and three different apps to accomplish one task, they are effectively prototyping a product for you.

The workaround tells you an outcome matters enough that people will tolerate inconvenience to achieve it.

The question is whether enough people share the problem and whether a better solution can create meaningful value.

Notice what changed

Another source of ideas is a change in capability.

A concept can be bad in 2018 and interesting in 2026 without the concept itself changing.

Maybe the technology got cheaper. Maybe consumers changed. Maybe distribution opened. Maybe regulation shifted. Maybe AI reduced the cost of building the first version by 90%.

This is why I keep returning to the question: what is possible now that was not practical before?

Connect worlds

Some of my favourite ideas are combinations.

Not because mashups are automatically innovative, but because expertise tends to become siloed. The person who understands an industry deeply may not know what a technology can now do. The technologist may not understand the industry's real pain. The creative person may see an experience neither of them considered.

Moving between worlds gives you more possible connections.

I explore that broader process in Seeing What Others Miss. The main habit is simple: pay attention to friction, workarounds, changes and unlikely connections. Ideas are everywhere once you start looking for the evidence that something wants to be better.