Where to Find Ideas: 3 Reference Sources That Work Best for Beginners
Introduction
🎯Learning Objectives
Estimated Time
About 1.5 hours
Expected Output
1 more concrete product direction worth investigating further
Know where to browse, what to look at first, and how to avoid getting stuck with vague labels like “AI + some industry”
Minimal SOP
Goal: After this, you should know where to browse when you have no clear idea yet, which links are better for concrete demand, which are better for trends, and which are closer to real business signals.
Action: Browse one round of idea lists, one round of small profitable products, then a round of trend and business sources. Keep only one direction you still want to investigate.
Result: You will leave with one more concrete direction worth validating instead of a broad category.
Quick links: Reference apps · Trend sources · Business signals · VC / accelerator sources · Shortest path · How AI can help
What You Will Learn
- Which sites are best for directly browsing product ideas
- Which sites are useful for studying small products that already make money
- Which sources are better for spotting trends and industry movement
- Which sources are closer to real business demand and real budgets
- A shortest path that works well for beginners
1. Reference Apps: Start with Things People Are Already Building
This is the best starting point for beginners because it is the most concrete.
Tier 1: Open the site and pick directly from idea lists
- Reddit — r/SomebodyMakeThis The core use of this subreddit is simple: real users post “I wish someone would build X.” Each post is usually one concrete product need, often with some situation context. A good way to browse is
Top -> Past MonthorTop -> Past Year. - Reddit — r/AppIdeas Similar to the one above, but more focused on software and apps. A lot of posts are basically “I need an app that can do X,” which makes the granularity easier for beginners.
- Reddit — r/Startup_Ideas More complete than the first two. Many posts include not just the problem, but some quick market thinking or monetization logic.
- Unvalidated Ideas Publishes startup ideas that are still unvalidated. The structure is consistent: target user, monetization angle, and a rough validation path.
- IdeasAI AI-generated startup ideas you can browse endlessly. Quality is uneven, but it works well as a way to spark directions that you later narrow yourself.
Tier 2: Study small products that already make money and reverse-engineer the idea
These platforms matter because they show you not just “someone wants this,” but “someone has already turned this into a product and maybe into revenue.”
- Starter Story Real small-business case studies with founder interviews, revenue data, and origin stories. The best entries to study are often not the giant successes, but the niche products making roughly $10k-$100k per month.
- Indie Hackers — Products A place where indie makers show products, growth, and often revenue. Sort by revenue and look at products making a few thousand to a few tens of thousands a month.
- MicroConf Blog Strong for Micro SaaS. Useful if you want to learn what “small enough to build, but still worth paying for” looks like.
- 1000 Tools An AI tool directory. Useful for checking which categories already exist, which ones feel weak, and which niches are still under-served in your region or industry.
- Product Hunt Useful for watching what categories keep appearing repeatedly. Do not only watch the number one launch. Look for repeated product types with no clear dominant winner.
- BetaList Good for early-stage products and teams still exploring direction.
Do not only study the product itself. Study reviews and “done-for-you” services too
- G2 Look at 1-star and 2-star reviews. Negative reviews often tell you exactly which step current products still handle badly.
- Capterra Similar use case to G2, especially for SaaS complaints and workflow friction.
- Taobao / Xianyu / Fiverr / Upwork / ZBJ Search for services like “done for you,” “organized for you,” “data entry,” “transcription,” and “manual cleanup.” If people keep paying humans to do it, there is often a repeatable workflow behind it.
The signal you want is simple:
- users are already complaining about current tools
- users are already paying someone to do the work manually
- users are already spending a lot of time and labor on the workflow
Another useful format: watch videos where someone breaks down ideas for you
If you do not like browsing lists and forums, video and podcast formats can work better.
- Search
Greg Isenberg startup ideasGood when you want someone to break down 2 or 3 concrete startup ideas with market size, competition, and entry angle. - Search
My First Million podcastStrong for loose but high-density idea brainstorming. It often surfaces surprisingly specific niches. - Search
YC startup ideasorMichael Seibel startup ideasGood for beginners because the explanations are usually direct and practical.
2. Trend Sources: See Which Directions Are Rising
Trend sites are not there to hand you a product idea. They help you judge whether a direction is heating up and worth a closer look.
- Exploding Topics Tracks fast-growing topics and product categories before they fully hit the mainstream. Good for spotting things that are rising but not yet too crowded.
- Google Trends Search a keyword, look at the trend line over the past year, then check the “related queries” section for breakout terms.
- Glimpse Similar in spirit to trend products, but more consumer-oriented. Useful for product categories, consumption patterns, and rising lifestyle signals.
- Industry report summary pages Useful when you already have a direction and want quick context on where it sits in the market.
- McKinsey / BCG / Gartner trend content Better for B2B, traditional industries, enterprise, and industrial settings.
- State of AI Report Useful when your direction is tightly tied to AI technology itself and you want a broader yearly map.
When looking at trends, focus on only three things:
- is the topic rising consistently
- what concrete scenario it falls into
- who would be the first to pay with time, switching cost, or budget
3. Business Signals: See Who Is Paying, Complaining, and Selling Manual Services
If you want something more grounded than “this sounds cool,” you need sources closer to real workflows.
See who is already paying for what
- China Government Procurement Network Search terms like “smart construction site,” “lab management system,” “data collection,” “clinic management,” or “quotation system.” Look at budget, technical requirements, and workflow details.
- Provincial and municipal public resource trading centers Useful for seeing what local governments and state-owned enterprises actually buy.
- Bidding platforms such as Bibiaowang, Qianlima, and Zhaobiatong Useful for enterprise-side procurement and repeated system demand.
The reason these sources matter is simple: they are not discussing the future. They reveal what someone is already willing to spend money on today.
See who is really complaining
- Manufacturing: machinery communities and industrial control forums
- Healthcare: DXY, Yimatong
- Construction / engineering: Tumu, Glodon communities
- Finance / accounting: accounting forums
- Foreign trade: trade communities and export forums
- Retail / food service forums
- Reddit vertical communities such as
r/smallbusiness,r/Entrepreneur,r/SaaS,r/healthcare,r/manufacturing - V2EX
- Jike
- Xiaohongshu
Do not only search for terms like “AI” or “innovation.” Better searches are:
- this is too annoying
- is there a better way
- recommend a tool
- Excel is no longer enough
- I wish there was
- is there a tool for
- I hate
See who is selling repeat manual labor
If you find these services selling well, it is usually worth looking deeper:
- turning PDF quotations into Excel
- cleaning customer data in bulk
- editing resumes / copy / transcripts / archives
These are rarely one-off needs. They are usually repeat workflows.
Study the full workflow, not just the idea list
Sometimes the shortest path is to pick an industry, trace the workflow, and find the steps still running on WeChat, Excel, paper, or phone calls.
- Foreign trade: finding suppliers, requesting quotes, price comparison, making quotations, sending them to clients, following up, inspections, booking shipment, customs. A strong cut point: converting supplier quotes into customer-facing quotations.
- Dental clinics: intake, scans, diagnosis, treatment plans, follow-up, treatment, revisit. A strong cut point: explaining treatment plans clearly and following up afterward.
- Construction sites: inspection, photos, chat groups, reports, delivery to the client. A strong cut point: turning on-site photos into compliance reports.
4. VC / Accelerator Sources: See Where the Wave Is Moving
These sources are useful for finding broader direction, but they do not replace validation.
- Y Combinator — Requests for Startups Good for concrete cuts because YC often says very directly: “we want to see someone build this.”
- a16z — Big Ideas More useful for broad trend and category judgment.
- NFX Good for quickly scanning a set of startup directions.
- Sequoia Capital Not always a direct idea list, but often useful for platform shifts and new opportunity framing.
- First Round Review Better for deeper thinking about a direction, not necessarily quick idea lists.
The upside of these sources:
- they tell you which directions may be worth watching
- they tell you which categories may keep getting pushed forward
- they help you enter the language of a category faster
Their limitation:
- they are usually investor-facing
- they do not always tell you which exact role feels the pain most
- they do not always tell you which workflow step is most broken
- they do not always tell you who is already paying today
A better use pattern is: use them to find a direction, then go back to reference products, industry communities, procurement signals, and real workflows.
5. The Shortest Path for Someone Who Has No Clear Idea Yet and Only Knows How to Build "Assistants"
If you only follow one path, make it this one:
- Step one, 30 minutes. Open r/SomebodyMakeThis, sort by
Top -> Past Year, scan 50 posts, and save every direction that makes you think, “I might actually be able to build something here.” - Step two, 30 minutes. Open Starter Story or Indie Hackers Products, sort by revenue, and study the middle-income products, not just the biggest wins. Find products related to your saved directions and note who they sell to and which step they solve.
- Step three, 20 minutes. Use Google Trends to search the related keywords. Check whether the trend is rising and what the breakout related queries are.
- Step four, 20 minutes. Go to G2 / Capterra / industry forums / bidding platforms / Fiverr-type sites and check what part of the workflow still feels painful and manual today.
After that, being able to say this one sentence is enough:
- A certain type of user, in a certain situation, is stuck on a certain workflow step and is currently holding it together with a clumsy workaround.
6. How AI Can Help
AI is not the center of this article, but it is very useful for organizing what you find.
The two most practical uses are:
- paste links, post titles, and user quotes into AI, and ask it to sort them into user group / situation / pain point / workaround
- ask AI to compress a pile of scattered notes into 3 candidate directions instead of expanding into 50 features
You can ask like this:
text
I recently browsed these sources:
1. [paste title or quote]
2. [paste title or quote]
3. [paste title or quote]
Please do not give me a feature list.
Only do 3 things:
1. group them by user type and situation
2. identify the workflow steps that keep showing up as painful
3. turn them into 3 more concrete candidate directions