Information-Diet Idea Divergence
Same inputs produce same ideas — mine your unique experience and starve the herd feed
- Difficulty
- Moderate
- Time to result
- ~weeks to results
- Steps
- 3
- Confidence
- 85%
Founders who consume the same podcasts, Twitter feeds, blogs, and friend group inevitably converge on the same startup ideas. To find non-obvious ideas, deliberately change your information diet and dig into your own personal experience and areas of expertise — go 'toward the mountains and the desert,' not the crowded city center.
Origin
Dalton Caldwell's take on why YC applications cluster, with Michael Seibel's 'mountains and desert vs. middle of the city' metaphor.
Core principles
- 01Identical information diets and social circles produce identical ideas and identical philosophies about what a good idea is
- 02Non-obvious ideas come from going deeper into your own personal interest or experience
- 03Unfashionable spaces become fashionable fast once someone finds success there — the edge is being early in the unfashionable space
- 04YC's Request for Startups exists partly to deliberately disrupt founders' information diets
How to run it
- 1
Audit your information diet
Recognize that you read the same people, listen to the same podcasts, and share the same friends as other founders — which is why your ideas resemble theirs.
Watch out If your idea is one everyone else in your circle would also generate, it's probably in the crowded 'city center.'
- 2
Mine your own experience and expertise
Go off the beaten path by drawing on your personal interests and domain expertise that others in your circle don't share (e.g., a marketplace for Funko Pops, wonky procurement software).
Pro tip Look for spaces almost no one is applying with — Caldwell rarely sees ERP or procurement-software applications, and they tend to be strong.
- 3
Deliberately alter your inputs
Change what you read and which domains you study to introduce idea spaces you'd otherwise filter out (open source, space, ERPs, deep tech).
Pro tip Study idea spaces you consciously filtered out as 'too bold' or 'not a startup' — that filter is where the uncrowded ideas hide.
Watch out Trends flip fast; by the time an unfashionable space (e.g., trucking startups) becomes conventional wisdom, the edge is gone.
In the wild
A few years back, trucking-related startups were new and fresh because no one was doing them, and they worked really well; then it became completely conventional wisdom to start one.
→ The early, unfashionable movers captured the opportunity before the space became crowded.
Common mistakes
Consuming the same feed and expecting a unique idea
With identical inputs to everyone else, you'll converge on the same ideas — differentiation requires different inputs and personal experience.
Is it for you?
Best for
Aspiring founders searching for a startup idea who keep landing on crowded, obvious spaces
Not ideal for
Founders who already have deep conviction in an idea grounded in genuine personal expertise
From the transcript
“people all kind of have the same idea”
“you have the same information diet of all these other Founders and you're friends with all the same people does it seem surprising then that…”
“go go deeper in your own personal interest or experience to find something that just the your exact per wouldn't come up with”
“try to mix up what your information diet is or what areas of expertise you have”
From the episode
Lessons from 1,000+ YC startups: Resilience, tar pit ideas, pivoting, more
Dalton Caldwell (Y Combinator, Managing Director)