I felt it was important to make this page, because my professor said it to me and my classmates on probably the first or second day of class.

"Most startup ideas that are pitched by college students suck."

He made it clear that this was not a broad statement about all startup ideas, it was specific to college students. Anecdotal data from his own courses along with courses taught by several of his colleagues suggested that this was not limited to a particular group of students or in a particular year. College students, on the whole, have a lot of bad ideas for startups.

Why?

Briefly put, lack of life experience. Especially when it comes to theorizing on what other people might want or need, college students live a pretty insular life, and struggle to come up with good startup ideas if those ideas aren't organic.

So is there a way to fix this problem? Can you avoid your ideas sucking?

There's a few ways you might decrease the sucky-ness of your ideas:

• To stick to what you know, choose organic ideas over non-organic ones.
• To check your assumptions, rigorously test your business ideas.
• To broaden your perspective, put non-college students on your founding team.
• You could stick to your guns, knowing that great execution trumps a perfect idea.
• Finally, and least helpfully, accept that maybe your ideas will not work.

If this page doesn't discourage you, good. Lots of people will tell you even more discouraging things, and you shouldn't take that to heart, either.

Where to next?

The Entrepreneurial Process

The F-Word