How this $60K/month founder finds ideas | Starter Story

In 2022, a founder named Pat Walls bought a used car and, out of curiosity, purchased a cheap diagnostic device that reads live RPMs from the engine. While building Shopify stores for e-commerce brands as his day job, he realized the device could generate fake engine sounds through a car’s speakers. That observation turned into Rummer, a product that lets electric vehicles mimic the sound of a roaring combustion engine. The idea was funny, controversial, and easy to explain in a ten-second TikTok video. Walls now runs Starter Story, a publication that breaks down how other founders build profitable businesses, and he argues that the way he found Rummer is not an accident—it is a repeatable method.

The operating principle: ideas come from doing, not thinking