There are plenty of ways to find working startup ideas. It would be great if you can find some problem solving idea, but it's not necessary. I wrote an additional essay on how to find ideas to PG's essay.

http://www.vusal.me/essays/ideas/

from the POV of a design researcher/strategist, this is a pretty typical if oversimplified process

1) find a problem through user research 2) asess scope & scale (is this a big problem? does it impact a lot of people?) 3) identify what the successful experience would include (more/less interpersonal interaction? faster or more leisurely? high energy or soothing?) 4) create divergent solutions, filter to find ones that work and might actually be profitable

My rule of thumb is to find problems and create solutions using technology. If you can solve a problem you truly have a product worth working on.

How do you determine the quality of your ideas?

Idea quality is hard to quantify. I don't really worry about the quality of the ideas until I'm choosing another project to work on.

Some people advocate using an idea validation board: http://thenextweb.com/entrepreneur/2012/10/02/the-validation... .

Lean startup method advocate measuring market demand - http://www.slideshare.net/explorics/4-tools-for-quick-market... .

I'm not sure what's best to be honest.

I ask because I find it incredibly easy to come up with ideas for projects and startups but find it incredibly difficult to assess their commercial qualities, the amount of work required, etc. Just picking an idea and work on it isn't that optimal because it's difficult to know how much work it required and where it will lead to.

On commercial qualities, there are business plan competitions that MBAs do a ton - here's a post from someone who thinks they are useless:

http://steveblank.com/2010/05/17/no-one-wins-in-business-pla...

After a decade of development I am still completely off when estimating the work required for any particular task or project. Most timelines are still 2-3x as long as originally estimated.

Choosing ideas seems more art than science right now. I'd love to have a better way.

I think market research helps. One approach could be: investigate the competition, see how your idea differentiates, and create a simple landing page to draw traffic to.

Lucky you! I am an experienced developer who really wants to do the whole startup journey. I am confident in my development skills, but ideas are something that escape me!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VShmtsLhkQg John Cleese of monty python talks about creativity and it's essence. May be relevant and is definitely fun.

Thanks, I will try to get a look at this when I get home from work tonight.

Provide a solution for a pain experienced by the masses.