1. Brainstorming The Ideas

Published: Nov 26th 2025

Updated: Dec 3rd 2025 when I was bored with exam prep

While I was trying to think of what to build, I kept circling the same question: is there a mental model I can follow for coming up with ideas? Until the moment when that thought struck me, I’d always randomly come up with ideas, driven by some internal intuition. This time, I wanted to some external validation.

I turned to Paul Graham’s 'Organic Startup Ideas' for insight. His core message splits ideas into two buckets: those that grow naturally out of your own life, and those designed from a distance for an imagined set of users. He argues that the most successful startups lean toward the first type, especially for young founders. While you may be bad at predicting what others want, living at the forefront of technology allows you to spot 'broken' problems and valuable solutions that the rest of the world hasn't seen yet.

This article was a solid read because I realized that the 2 ideas I’d come up with fall into either bucket.

Idea 1: UofT Food truck Advance Order App

I came up with this after seeing the long lines of hungry students waiting beside food trucks in the afternoon and evening. When you’ve got to run from one class to another, or have a super busy UofT schedule, every minute counts. And in the colder temperatures, being able to order ahead in the winter is also a nice convenience, as it saves you sometime waiting outside in the freezing temperatures.

And a neat feature would be allowing to leave reviews for various food truck dishes - this data would be valuable to both students and food truck operators alike.

Simple, clean and a great way to get building.

(This app could even have an AI add-on that tracks your hunger levels and orders the right food for you while you doom scroll because you can’t figure out what to eat. OR It could even predict what food your girlfriend wants when she can’t decide what to eat and help you come up with the perfect suggestion. Even Door Dash can’t do that yet ;)

Idea 2: Creating an interactive, location-aware Campus App that uses short, high-reward 'side quests' to alleviate ADHD-associated boredom

‍This App solves a personal problem - one that made it so hard to stick routines and build self-discipline, the foundation of any ambitious pursuit. Its the culmination of 2 years of personal experimentation to figure out how to achieve high productivity days consistently. But its a lot harder to build, there’s a lot of nuance in it and I may end up giving up before I start.

I want to get my hands dirty quickly, I want to get sucked into the building hyperfocus, I want to feel the momentum of the challenge and most importantly, I want to get this idea out there.

So Idea 1 it is.

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