Some startup ideas are so obviously bad that no one questions passing on them. Others, though, sit in a strange space — outliers that don’t fit the conventional mold. These are the ones that, at first glance, seem weird but intriguing. Maybe your friends and family think you’re crazy for considering them. Maybe even you hesitate, wondering if you’re wasting your time, because not every outlier is a breakthrough, many are just noise.
If that doubt was enough to make you walk away, it was probably for the best, not because the idea itself was bad, but because being an outlier felt overwhelming and/or you never truly believed in it. For an idea to have a chance, you need to believe in it long before others do.
But let’s be clear, this isn’t a rallying cry to blindly chase every unconventional idea. The world is full of overlooked geniuses, but it’s also full of people mistaking distraction for discovery. The challenge isn’t in being unconventional; it’s in knowing whether your idea actually matters. How do you know if you’re on the edge of something real or merely indulging in an illusion?
The Wrong Approach
There’s no foolproof system for recognizing a breakthrough, but there are signals. If your idea starts with a spreadsheet rather than a question that keeps you up at night, you’re probably on the wrong path.
The greatest innovations don’t emerge from a checklist; they arise from an obsession with understanding something that others overlook. If you’re trying to “pick” a startup idea like an investor picks stocks, you’re already missing the point. The best work happens when you follow what fascinates you, not what seems lucrative. If you want to build something meaningful, don’t start with an agenda, start by learning. The best work doesn’t stem from calculated ambition but from curiosity.
Why do I say that? The moment you start treating an idea like an equation, you’re likely driving it straight into a dead-end. A groundbreaking idea doesn’t emerge from a blog post on startup trends or by asking, “What’s a good startup idea?” Ideas aren’t fish waiting to be caught in a crowded sea.
That said, I do use mathematical concepts only as a simplification tool. That’s where statistics matter. It helps clarify concepts, but it should never dictate human decision-making. Being an outlier in the wrong direction — on the tail of impracticality or irrelevance — is different from being an outlier on the edge of true innovation. This distinction is everything. If you never even considered it, maybe you were right to abandon the idea. If, however, that question keeps haunting you, then you owe yourself a deeper dive.
Spontaneous Order
Friedrich Hayek, the Nobel-winning economist, offers an insightful parallel. He compares the human mind to a neural switchboard that processes internal stimuli (a concept he explores in The Sensory Order). Just as markets operate through decentralized decision-making rather than top-down planning, our minds don’t follow a strict, linear process when forming ideas. Instead, they function as dynamic, self-organizing systems, constantly integrating new knowledge, past experiences, and subconscious patterns to make sense of the world.
This means that breakthrough ideas don’t emerge from deliberate calculation alone — they arise from the spontaneous connections our minds form between seemingly unrelated concepts. When you obsess over a particular problem, your brain works on it in the background, making associations beyond what you can consciously track. What feels like a sudden “aha” moment is often the result of countless micro-processes happening beneath the surface, aligning scattered thoughts into a cohesive insight.
This is why the best startup ideas don’t arise from forceful ideation sessions but from immersion in a field, an ongoing fascination with a problem, and an openness to discovering unexpected connections. If you feel drawn to an idea without fully understanding why, it might not be randomness — it could be your mind naturally assembling pieces of a puzzle you didn’t even know you were solving. Hayek wrote,
We can never form a crystal or a complex organic compound by placing its constituent individual atoms in the lattice of a crystal or in the benzole circle of an organic compound. But we can create the conditions under which they can be so organized. (Hayek, 1973:61)
Hayek’s theory of “spontaneous order,” which describes how complex structures emerge organically rather than through central planning, isn’t just an economic insight; it’s a guiding principle for founders.
This concept isn’t unique to Western thought. Over 2,000 years ago, the Chinese philosopher Zhuang Zhou articulated a strikingly similar idea. He emphasized the power of natural, unforced action (wu wei), which aligns seamlessly with Hayek’s spontaneous order. Zhou believed that the most effective way to navigate the world wasn’t through rigid control but by allowing things to take shape organically. When applied to startups, this means that the best way to find the right idea isn’t to obsessively search for it, it’s to engage deeply in the things that intrigue you and let the insights surface on their own.
Hayek provides an even deeper insight into why this happens. He argues that the human mind does not process information in a purely logical or algorithmic way. This means that the best ideas are not built top-down; they evolve naturally as our brains make connections between previously unlinked concepts.
Order with the help of disorder is the rule, and we are a long way from the determinism of classical physics. — Ilya Prigogine (Nobel Laureate, Belgian physical chemist)
An idea, much like a market, is not created through sheer force of will. It arises when the right elements interact under the right conditions. Hayek describes this as a “classification apparatus” — our brains are not just passive receivers of information but active processors, constantly categorizing and reinterpreting data based on past knowledge. This explains why the best startup ideas often don’t come when you’re actively searching for them but when seemingly unrelated knowledge and experiences collide in unexpected ways. The mind operates as a decentralized, spontaneous system — mirroring the same principles that drive markets and innovation.
Think of it like a puzzle. Imagine you’re handed 1,000 scattered puzzle pieces without knowing what the final picture looks like. If you try to force pieces together, you’ll only create a distorted image. But if you patiently explore the relationships between pieces, allowing the pattern to reveal itself, the picture gradually takes form. This is how spontaneous order works, both in markets and in idea generation. You can’t dictate innovation through brute force; you have to recognize patterns, piece by piece, as they emerge.
The biggest breakthroughs often began as side projects, curiosities, or unexpected discoveries. Paul Graham has spoken about this extensively: the best founders aren’t just chasing an outcome; they’re consumed by the question itself.
So don’t force an idea into existence. But if the process of exploring an idea feels like oxygen, if abandoning it feels like suffocation, you have your answer. The best ideas aren’t discovered; they evolve. The ones worth pursuing won’t let you walk away.
