Tak­ing inspi­ra­tion from Paul Graham’s Ideas for Star­tups essay, Mar­tin Zwill­ing offers some fur­ther thoughts—to wit, don’t start with an idea, start with a prob­lem.

Poten­tial startup founders are always look­ing for ideas to imple­ment, when they should be look­ing for prob­lems to solve. Cus­tomers pay for solu­tions, and there is no mar­ket for ideas. I’m often approached by peo­ple with a “mil­lion dol­lar idea,” but I haven’t seen any­one pay for one of these yet.