Believe me, I'm familiar with the idea that there are two kinds of ideas, big ones that change the world, and little ones that merely make money. But this distinction isn't borne out empirically. In fact the space of ideas is a very highly connected graph. You can get almost anywhere in a few hops. And that means it's almost impossible to tell at first where an idea could lead. Big things start as little things. And conversely starting with a "big idea" is often a mistake, because when people have such ideas they tend to be pretty blurry.
Empirically (unless you're a government) the way to do something big is to start with something small but definite, then keep pushing its scope.
If your goal is to get to big + definite, it's easier to start with definite and add big than to start with big and add definite.
I agree with this 100% but would add that once you understand this concept, it becomes possible to prune down the space of potential ideas to ones that you can most imagine could lead to a larger scope. I realize this is often hard to see up front, but it seems more like a way to rule out short-sighted ideas completely than to decide which ones are most likely to turn into world-changing things.
It is with this lens that I was finally able to come up with an idea for a company that was actually interesting to me. Before, everything I came up with was pretty one-dimensional. I couldn't get excited about building them because I couldn't ever come up with a satisfactory answer to "What else could/should this company do?" I found it hard to find the motivation to work on something that I didn't see growth potential in. Once I landed on an idea that had room for expansion, the code, designs and ideas just started to come.
> I'm familiar with the idea that there are two kinds of ideas, big ones that change the world, and little ones that merely make money.
I have a better dichotomy: striving to make a difference, vs striving to make money. Those who strive to make money often end up making a difference, but the consequences are often not pretty.
By the way, didn't you say yourself that the purpose of a startup should be to improve people's lives? That's good, even if the improvement you seek is small. From there, one "just" needs to know what one goals are, what one should do to achieve them, then do that.
Empirically (unless you're a government) the way to do something big is to start with something small but definite, then keep pushing its scope.
If your goal is to get to big + definite, it's easier to start with definite and add big than to start with big and add definite.