Product Idea Prompts

Ideation is a skill that requires regular practice. “Training your idea muscle” through regular workouts is a great metaphor. However, while “Just write down 10 ideas each day” might sound easy, I always found it hard and was never able to do it consistently. It’s just too frustrating to stare at blank piece of paper. But once I recognized that this is something I’m struggling with, I quickly came up with a solution. I’ve developed a simple product idea prompt generator that includes all the great strategies that are recommended by people like Pieter Levels, Ryan Hover, Patrick McKenzie, Paul Graham, Eric Torenberg, Artiom Dashinsky, Sam Altman, Austen Allred, Justin Jackson, Marc Andreessen, Tyler Tringas, to name just a few. (Press the little icon below each prompt to see what source inspired it.) The prompts are reminders to try different ideation methods regularly. I’ve included immediately actionable prompts (“go to this Fiverr category, look at the gigs, what could you automate?”) and a few somewhat silly ones (“What about Tumblr for tailors?” “What kind of product do we end up with if we mix Bitcoin with Snapchat?”) that usually only serve as useful warm-up exercises but occasionally also lead to interesting ideas. It's easy to skip any prompt that you don't like by pressing the space bar or opening a new tab.