Every startup starts with an idea.
But how do many entrepreneurs actually come up with those ideas? The reality may surprise you.
We are angel investors who spent the last couple of years interviewing 18 Harvard Business School alumni on their experiences starting companies, for a book called Smart Startups.
For the HBS grads-turned-founders we spoke with, there was no “light-bulb moment” when their business idea struck them. On the contrary, all had embarked on a true ideation process. They vetted ideas—often hundreds of them—over weeks, months, or even years.
In our interviews, we identified two types of ideation: organic and deliberate. With organic ideation, the entrepreneur develops an idea based on his or her
