🔢 Screening Startup Ideas
Consultant to Founder #4
🔄 Introduction
Last time we kicked off this newsletter, we talked a lot about the process of ideating. But here’s what happens next: the more you start digging into different spaces, the more you’ll stumble upon several hot ideas that seem worth pursuing.
And while it’s super exciting at first, the hard truth is that you need to apply some filters early on otherwise you risk wasting a lot of time chasing ideas that, frankly, aren’t really worth it.
There are plenty of ways you can build your own screening system, but if you strip it down to the basics, it really comes down to two big buckets:
Subjective criteria
Objective criteria
Let’s walk through both.
🫐 1. Subjective Criteria
Subjective criteria are all about you - your background, your interests, and those of your co-founders (if you have any).
🔍 A. Knowledge in the Field
If you already have expertise in an area, that’s a plus. It can give you a head start, aka a little “unfair advantage” when pursuing that idea.
That said, my personal take is that expertise is only a real unfair advantage if it’s insane. Otherwise? In startups, a founder with sheer grit and focus can often learn what a “professional” spent 10 years mastering - and do it in just 12 months.
That’s why I wouldn’t over-index this criterion too much. Knowledge helps, but it's not everything.
🔍 B. Interest in the Field
Now, even if you have deep knowledge in a field - say, aerospace - but you're absolutely sick of it... well, that’s a signal too.
Interest matters. Actually, I’d argue it matters even more than knowledge.
Interest can show up in many forms: you could be passionate about a specific industry, a type of business model, a particular customer segment - or even a style of operating.
For instance, when Edo and I were evaluating ideas, we weren’t obsessed with any particular sector. What we cared about was the business model.
Specifically:
We really wanted to build something in the B2B space, because we loved the profitability dynamics.
We wanted to have a real impact on businesses, not just consumers.
We also liked the idea of selling to corporates, because of our past experience as consultants.
Having that clarity helped us narrow down our options.
📊 2. Objective Criteria
Subjective filters are a good start, but then you need to put your ideas through the second, harsher lens: objective criteria.
Objective criteria are based on facts - not just what sounds good in a pitch deck, but what makes sense when you’re brutally honest with yourself.
Here’s the checklist we used:
🔍 A. Problem
Is this perceived as a big problem by the people who experienced it?
Are people actually paying (or trying hard) to solve it already?
Example:
In our case, we chose procurement. Companies manage enormous spending, yet the tools they use are often outdated and terrible. Teams constantly complain, money is wasted - clear signs that there was a real, urgent pain.
📈 B. Market Size
How big is the market surrounding this problem?
Can this market eventually grow into a billion-dollar opportunity?
You can absolutely start with a small market, but you want to be confident there’s expandability down the line.
Quick note from my experience: market size is often over-indexed when it comes to idea selection. First, build something people actually want. You can figure out market expansion levers later. If your “idea space” is wide enough, you’ll have room to operate.
🔍 C. Competition
What does the competitive landscape look like?
Are there tons of players, or just a few?
Are the existing players doing well or are they struggling?
Is the market fragmented (lots of small players) or consolidated (a few big ones)?
Be careful here: if there’s no competition at all, that’s not always good news. It could mean the problem isn’t painful enough for anyone to bother solving.
⏳ D. Why Now
Why is now the right time to build this?
Would it have made just as much sense five years ago (meaning you might be late)?
Will it make more sense five years from now (meaning you might be too early)?
Timing matters a lot.
Today, for example, AI enables solutions that weren’t remotely possible a few years ago — so the "why now" is obvious. But there are plenty of other forces at play too that are worth taking into account: social trends, regulatory changes, geopolitical shifts and many more. All of these can create unique windows of opportunity.
Make sure you can clearly answer the "why now" for your idea.
🌐 E. Why Here
Why does it make sense to build this company where you are?
Why should investors back you, and not a team based somewhere else?
Most founders dream of building global companies - and that’s great - but you still need to explain why starting from here makes sense.
Whether it's local insight, access to a specific customer base, cost advantages, or something else, "why here" is a question you’ll want to have a solid answer for.
🤖 Bringing it All Together
When you bring subjective and objective criteria together, you can start doing a first-pass screening of your ideas.
You can even get a little nerdy and assign weights if you want, something like:
Subjective criteria: 20%
Objective criteria: 80%
And then further break down each sub-criterion based on what you value the most.
My honest suggestion? Don’t over-engineer it. Just get something lightweight up and running. The point is to keep your thinking sharp:
You want to cross-check your excitement with a structured assessment - so you don't fall in love blindly with the wrong idea.
Once you’ve done this:
If an idea scores too low → you can confidently kill it early and move on.
If you have several good ideas → you can park the best ones for later, when you're ready to tackle them.
If you need to pivot or restart down the line → you already have a curated map of opportunities to dig into.
And that’s powerful.
You’ll never lose momentum.
You’ll always have a backup pipeline.
You’ll always have more context to dive deeper when needed.
That, more than anything, keeps your confidence up and helps you keep moving forward.
Time to take the leap, my friend!