The Three F's Idea Filter (Freedom, Fulfilment, Finance)
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Time to result
- ~days to results
- Steps
- 6
- Confidence
- —
Robin Waite's filter for deciding what business to actually start. Three forces must all be present to some degree: Freedom (living life on your own terms), Fulfilment (something you'd do even unpaid), and Finance (it pays). None of them has to be a ten out of ten — Robin's example rates web design as roughly seven for freedom, nine for fulfilment and six for finance early on — but if any one is missing, the business collapses the first time it gets hard. Ideas driven purely by money have no fulfilment to carry you through resistance. The filter is then made concrete: dump every idea onto one sheet of paper and score each one against three columns out of ten. Cream rises to the top, and you commit to testing the winner rather than deliberating in the abstract.
Origin
Extracted from Deep Dive with Ali Abdaal
How to run it
- 1
Dump every idea onto one sheet of A4
Rather than trying to hold all the options in your head, write down every business idea you have on a single sheet of paper. Robin frames this as the smallest possible first step when funding, time or confidence feel like blockers — it costs nothing and immediately converts paralysis into material you can work with.
Pro tip Include ideas you think are silly. They are cheap to eliminate on paper and expensive to eliminate in your head.
- 2
Score column one: how much do I love this?
Rate each idea one to ten on how much you actually enjoy the work itself — the fulfilment axis. The test is whether you'd jump out of bed to do it even if nobody paid you. Past enjoyment counts as evidence: Ali's web design tinkering and the fact friends already come to him for relationship advice both register here.
Pro tip Look for the thing you already do unpaid for friends. That is a fulfilment score you have already proven.
- 3
Score column two: can I get results for clients?
Rate one to ten how likely it is you can deliver a real, repeatable outcome for the person paying you. This is the ability axis — not credentials, but whether people who follow your help actually end up better off. Robin is explicit that a qualification is not required for coaching, but crossing into therapy or mind-body-spirit work is where certification becomes non-negotiable.
Watch out If the work strays into mental health or physical treatment, Robin's line is firm: get certified. Coaching does not need a qualification, therapy does.
- 4
Score column three: can people afford to pay me?
Rate one to ten whether an audience exists that has the disposable income to buy this. In the roleplay, Ali's medical colleagues fail this test while consultants, bankers, lawyers and divorced professionals pass it easily. This is the finance axis and it is the one most beginners never check before building.
Pro tip Name specific people you already know who could afford it. If you cannot name five, the score is not a seven.
- 5
Add up the score out of 30 and let the cream rise
Total the three columns for each idea. Robin says you can add as many criteria as you like, but three is enough — one or two ideas will consistently pull ahead. You are not looking for thirty out of thirty; you are looking for the idea where all three axes are present and at least one can be improved over time.
Pro tip Finance is the most improvable score. Freedom and fulfilment are largely fixed by the nature of the work.
Watch out Do not eliminate an idea just because one score is a six. Robin's point is that finance can be moved from a six to a ten over a year or two — a zero on fulfilment cannot be moved at all.
- 6
Commit to the top idea and test it with one small real deliverable
Stop evaluating and produce something. Robin's version for the web design idea is to build a five-page brochure site in Squarespace for a friend or family member — paid or unpaid, it does not matter. The point is to generate evidence about whether you enjoy it. If you hate it, you have eliminated it cheaply and can come back for another conversation.
Pro tip Frame the test as an experiment with a defined end, not a launch. That removes the pressure that stops most people starting.
In the wild
In the roleplay, Ali starts by naming web design as the thing he was good at as a teenager. Robin scores it loosely — freedom around a seven, fulfilment high, finance a six at first because early sites get built cheaply for testimonials. But Ali admits he has not touched it in ten years. When they pivot to relationship advice, the fulfilment score is unarguable: friends already come to him unpaid, he loves rewriting their dating profiles, and he feels energised rather than drained after a session. The idea that scores highest on love, results and affordability becomes the business.
→ The filter surfaced an idea Ali was already doing for free, rather than one he merely used to like.
Ali floats day trading and paid surveys as alternatives, having seen people get rich quick with them online. Robin's response is a single question: do you have any passion for any of those things? Ali says no. Robin refuses to even explore them further. His reasoning is mechanical rather than moralistic — a pure-finance idea has no fulfilment reserve, so the first time it gets difficult the only lever you have is putting more hours in, which destroys the freedom too. The idea then dies, and you are back where you started having burned months.
→ Two months of research into ideas with no staying power avoided in under a minute.
A self-employed electrician wanting to reduce on-site hours lists three ideas: an online course on domestic wiring, a YouTube channel reviewing tools, and a consultancy advising landlords on compliance. Scored out of thirty, the course rates 7/6/5 (he enjoys teaching but is unsure he can guarantee results), the channel 9/4/3, and the landlord consultancy 6/9/9. The consultancy wins despite the lowest enjoyment score because it clears all three axes, and he can name eleven landlords who already ask him compliance questions for free.
→ He booked two paid compliance reviews within a fortnight instead of spending six months filming a course.
Common mistakes
Chasing an idea purely for the money
Robin's warning is that finance-only ideas have no reserve. When the work gets hard — and it always does — you have no passion to carry you through, so your only response is to pour in more hours. That kills the freedom you started for, the fulfilment was never there, and you quit. He refuses to even discuss day trading or paid surveys for exactly this reason.
Waiting to evaluate every option before committing
Having too many choices is itself a cause of procrastination. Ali admits he has been held back for years by seeing all the possibilities and doing nothing. The scorecard exists to force elimination, and the small test deliverable exists to generate real evidence. Robin's line is blunt: most people overthink it for years, and that is why most people never start.
Demanding all three F's score ten out of ten
Robin explicitly says the three do not have to be tens. Web design might be a seven for freedom because it is technical with late nights, and a six for finance because you build early sites cheaply for reviews and case studies. Holding out for a perfect idea means never starting one. What matters is that all three are present to some degree and that the finance axis has room to climb.
From the transcript
“there's three F's which are really important to me so freedom is the first one so to be able to kind of live life on…”
“if you get into things purely like you have to if it's just for finance if it's just one of the apps that's taken care…”
“and so each idea then you end up with a score out of 30 and quite often cream Rises to the top you end up…”
From the episode
How To Build A Business In 2023 (The Easy Way) - Robin Waite
Robin Waite