I was reading a newsletter, which is a pretty famous one within the product management community. In this weeks’ issue, it’s said the writer is also doing angle investing now. So I looked up startups he invested in.

I can’t believe those startups are real. Because they’re just ideas in the discussions I had with schoolmates last semester. For example, I pitched an idea on 15.390 about using LiDAR to scan one’s body measurements in order to eliminate the sizing problem of online apparel shopping. And then, boom! Unspun is out there.

Another example is Cerebral. Another team on 15.390 started by building a community to let depressed patients help each other. And then they found out that a bunch of apps doing exactly the same thing are available already, so they pivot to licensed therapy, which is exactly what Cerebral offers.

And it didn’t stop there. Last October, I was having a discussion about a proposal to compete in MIT DesignX. The proposal aimed to connect the young with the elderly so that elderly could get some help and companion when they need some. But there’s one thing we didn’t figure out: how to create motives for the young to help the elderly. Papa‘s answer is the payment from the elderly’s health plan or employer.

The above examples are just from one part-time angle investor. If we look at a wider scope, there’re Modsy, Curated, AptDeco, MicroAcquire, Lawtrades, Betterleap. Every single one of these companies occurred as a startup idea in conversations I had last year. So I come to believe that everybody is being hit by apples every day, but only every few of them become Newton. What we should do is to identify ideas with market demand and start making them come true.