How can I find ideas?

Here’s an idea: get a job. After a year, you’ll have plenty of ideas, maybe even one of your own.

I hate to rain on anyone’s parade, but the thought of begging for ideas is just so alien to me. The best predictor of your success in any endeavor is your own determination. With someone else’s idea, you’re much more likely to bail at the first sign of difficulty. Once you get a little real world experience under your belt, you’ll find plenty of opportunities to encounter something for which you’ll have real passion.

Your chances of success increase astronomically when you’re working on something you “have to do”. The only way to know if you “have to do it” is to have a little background and experience with it. Trading ideas like commodities seems like the least likely way to find something you’ll be passionate about.

OTOH, a “boring job” can be an incredibly fertile environment for start-up ideas. You’ll learn what people want, see what works and what doesn’t, and be much more adept at identifying opportunities. Oh, and get a chance to bank some money so that when you do start working on your passion, you can concentrate on that instead of begging for funding.

Sometimes the easy way out is just that: the easy way “out”. Get a job and pay your dues. You’ll probably be glad that you did.