A reliable way to find startup ideas

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A good way to find startup ideas might be to simply go to forums/sites for particular communities, such as the firefighting community, or cnc machine community, and simply ask what types of software they really want, which tasks could be automated by computers/robots.

A lot of startups tend to focus on creating social media/cloud computing sites because that's all they have direct experience with (web browsing and programming).

Many other industries are stuck in technological dark ages - the industrial automation community still programs in ladder logic!