From Paul Graham’s “How to Start a Startup” (March 2005):
You need three things to create a successful startup: to start with good people, to make something customers actually want, and to spend as little money as possible. Most startups that fail do it because they fail at one of these. A startup that does all three will probably succeed. …
I can think of several heuristics for generating ideas for startups, but most reduce to this: look at something people are trying to do, and figure out how to do it in a way that doesn’t suck. …
What matters is not ideas, but the people who have them. Good people can fix bad ideas, but good ideas can’t save bad people.