Where do they come from? I would say the best ones are just those ideas that make the personal life of the inventor more enjoyable or productive or accessible or meaningful. At some point, the author decides that other people may also benefit from this very idea, and she builds a business around it. If the move were right, the customers would follow.
Another approach would be the “blue ocean” strategy. When you take some idea proven to be working for one segment of the economy and introducing it to another, you do the “blue ocean”. Probably the majority of Internet startups were born this way. Paper notebooks evolved into Evernote. The phone became Skype. These days some Internet-born ideas are migrating back to the real life by the way.
Sometimes the success of the startup is guaranteed with the invested money. But do these ideas improve this world and offer some unique IP behind them? Nope. Money makes money, though.
