Finding Your Vision

Your vision is your North Star - it guides every decision and inspires others to join your journey.

What is a Startup Vision?

When Brian Chesky and Joe Gebbia first started Airbnb, their vision wasn’t “build a hotel booking platform.” It was much simpler and more human: “What if anyone could belong anywhere?” This vision guided them through countless pivots, rejections, and near-failures. It helped them see past the obvious problems (strangers won’t stay in other people’s homes, it’s not safe, it won’t scale) to imagine a different world.

A startup vision is fundamentally different from a business idea. While a business idea focuses on what you’ll build, a vision focuses on why the world needs it to exist. It’s the change you want to see in the world, expressed in a way that makes people say “yes, that should exist.”

Your vision serves as your decision-making framework. When Airbnb faced the choice between becoming a budget hotel alternative or creating a new category of travel, their vision of “belonging anywhere” pointed them toward community, unique experiences, and human connection. Every feature, every policy, every partnership decision could be evaluated against this North Star.

Think of your vision as the intersection of three critical elements: a problem you deeply understand, a future you’re passionate about creating, and a unique perspective that others might miss. It’s not just what you want to build—it’s why the world will be better once you’ve built it.

The Vision Discovery Process

1. Start with Problems You Care About

The best startup visions emerge from personal frustration. Drew Houston didn’t set out to build a cloud storage company—he was just tired of emailing files to himself and forgetting his USB drive. That personal pain point became Dropbox’s vision: “Your stuff, anywhere.”

Here’s how to systematically identify problems worth solving. Spend a week documenting every moment of friction in your day. Not just the big, obvious problems, but the small annoyances that make you think “there has to be a better way.” Write them down immediately—don’t trust your memory.

For each problem you identify, dig deeper with these questions: How much time does this waste in your day? How much money does it cost you (directly or indirectly)? How does it make you feel? Then expand outward: Who else experiences this same frustration? How do they currently deal with it? Why do existing solutions fall short?

The key insight here is that the best startup ideas often don’t feel like startup ideas at first. They feel like obvious improvements to things that already exist. Instagram started as a way to make mobile photos look better. Slack emerged from the team’s internal need for better communication. The magic happens when you realize that your personal frustration is actually shared by millions of others.

2. Identify Your Unique Perspective

Your background isn’t just your resume—it’s your superpower. Reid Hoffman’s experience at PayPal and SocialNet gave him unique insights into both payments and social networks, which became the foundation for LinkedIn’s vision of professional networking. His vision wasn’t just “Facebook for professionals”—it was “What if every professional connection could unlock economic opportunity?”

Take inventory of your unique combination of experiences. Maybe you’re a nurse who understands healthcare workflows and also happens to be passionate about user experience design. Or you’re a teacher who’s seen how students really learn, combined with technical skills in mobile development. These intersections are where breakthrough visions are born.

Your network and communities matter just as much as your skills. The problems you see most clearly are often the ones experienced by communities you’re already part of. If you’re deeply embedded in the startup ecosystem, you’ll notice problems that outsiders miss. If you’re a parent, you’ll see challenges in family life that others overlook. Your insider knowledge of any community is a competitive advantage.

3. Vision Statement Framework

A powerful vision statement isn’t just a description—it’s a rallying cry. It should make people immediately understand both the problem and the possibility. When you hear “A computer on every desk and in every home” (Microsoft’s original vision), you instantly grasp both the audacious goal and why it matters.

Let’s work through crafting your vision using this framework: “We believe that [specific group] deserves [better outcome] because [fundamental belief about the world].”

For example, instead of “We believe small businesses should be able to accept payments easily,” try “We believe that anyone with a great idea deserves the same payment capabilities as large corporations, because innovation shouldn’t be limited by access to financial infrastructure.”

Notice how the second version reveals deeper beliefs about fairness, innovation, and access. It suggests a worldview, not just a product feature. This is what transforms a business idea into a vision that can sustain you through years of building.

Testing Your Vision

The Clarity Test: Can Anyone Understand It?

Your vision needs to be immediately comprehensible to anyone, regardless of their background. This isn’t about dumbing it down—it’s about finding the universal human truth at the core of what you’re building.

Test this by explaining your vision to three different people: someone much older than you (like a grandparent), someone much younger (like a teenager), and someone in a completely different field. If all three immediately grasp both the problem and why solving it matters, you’re on the right track.

When Melanie Perkins pitched Canva’s vision—”democratizing design so anyone can create beautiful graphics”—everyone immediately understood it. They could picture themselves struggling with complex design software and imagine how much easier life would be with a simple alternative. The vision was both aspirational and relatable.

If you find yourself needing to explain technical details or industry jargon to make your vision clear, step back. The most powerful visions tap into experiences everyone has had, even if they’ve had them in different contexts.

The Passion Test: Will This Sustain You?

Building a startup is a marathon, not a sprint. Your vision needs to be something you can think about every day for years without getting bored. More importantly, it needs to be something that energizes you even when everything is going wrong.

Ask yourself: When you imagine working on this problem for the next decade, how does that feel? Do you get excited thinking about becoming a world expert in this domain? Can you picture yourself still caring about this problem even after you’ve solved your initial version of it?

Sara Blakely spent years cutting the feet off pantyhose and wearing them under white pants, all while working full-time selling fax machines. Her vision of helping women feel confident and comfortable in their clothes sustained her through countless rejections and setbacks. That personal passion was essential because building Spanx required persistence that would have been impossible without genuine obsession.

The Market Test: Do Others Feel the Pain?

The quickest way to test if your vision resonates is to describe the problem (not your solution) to potential users and watch their reaction. Do their eyes light up? Do they immediately start sharing their own frustrations with the current situation? Do they ask when your solution will be available?

But be careful not to just ask friends and family, who might be polite rather than honest. Find ways to talk to strangers who experience the problem. Join online communities, attend industry events, or simply start conversations with people who fit your target user profile.

The strongest signal is when people not only relate to the problem but also start telling you about failed attempts to solve it themselves. When someone says “I’ve tried everything and nothing works,” you’ve found a problem worth solving.

Common Vision Mistakes

  1. Too Broad: “Making the world a better place”
  2. Too Narrow: “A better CRM for dentists in Ohio”
  3. Solution-First: Starting with how instead of why
  4. Following Trends: Building what’s hot instead of what you care about

Vision Evolution

Your vision will evolve as you:

Key: The core purpose should remain stable while the execution may change.

Action Items

  1. Write Your Vision Statement: Use the framework above
  2. Test It: Share with 5 people and get feedback
  3. Research the Space: Understand existing solutions and competitors
  4. Start Building: Begin with the smallest possible experiment

Resources

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