74. Opportunity is Everywhere: Using Twitter, Wikipedia, Patents, & Niche Databases to Discover Trends

The internet has a treasure trove of information that you can use to generate business ideas, spot trends, and understand what the future will look like before everyone else. But to benefit from the internet's wealth of knowledge, you need to learn how to use it in the right ways.

In this episode, Cal and Steph discuss four unconventional ways that you can use the internet to find good ideas for businesses and products that people actually want.

You’ll learn how to:

• Use Twitter searches to discover products that people want
• Tap into a rich reservoir of unsolved problems with Wikipedia
• Leverage a sci-fi technology database to dream up the future
• Leverage patents to see what companies are investing in

Resources Mentioned

• Wikipedia’s list of unsolved problems
• Patent Drop newsletter
• Not Boring Sci-Fi Idea Bank and further reading on the database
• Twitter Searches
  • "request for product" min_faves:200
  • "someone please build" min_faves:200
  • "I’d pay for" min_faves:200
  • “why doesn’t this exist” min_faves:100
  • "business idea” min_faves:1000

This episode is not affiliated with Steph's work at a16z and is for informational purposes only; should NOT be taken as legal, business, tax, or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security; and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any a16z fund. For more details please see a16z.com/disclosures.