If you don't have an industry or idea, don't start with product brainstorming. Start by identifying groups of people you'd genuinely enjoy serving. The foundation of a sustainable business is a founder's deep connection to their customer, which provides motivation to solve their problems.
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The advice to "serve a customer for 10 years" is incomplete. A more foundational step is to first understand your own authentic identity. Building products that reflect who you are naturally attracts the right customer, creating genuine "customer-founder fit" and avoiding the burnout of "putting on a show."
Startups often fail by targeting abstract concepts like 'markets' or 'personas,' neither of which actually buys products. The fundamental unit of demand is a specific project on a single person's to-do list. Solve for one person's tangible need, then see if that need replicates across many others.
Successful startups tap into organic customer needs that already exist—a 'pull' from the market. In contrast, 'conjuring demand' involves a founder trying to convince a market of a new worldview without prior evidence. This is a much harder and less reliable path to building a business.
The process of building a business must start with identifying the ideal customer. The product, offer, messaging, and channels should all be reverse-engineered from that initial choice. Delaying this decision limits leverage and leads to wasted effort on a mismatched offer.
Instead of optimizing for a quick win, founders should be "greedy" and select a problem so compelling they can envision working on it for 10-20 years. This long-term alignment is critical for avoiding the burnout and cynicism that comes from building a business you're not passionate about. The problem itself must be the primary source of motivation.
Instead of searching for a market to serve, founders should solve a problem they personally experience. This "bottom-up" approach guarantees product-market fit for at least one person—the founder—providing a solid foundation to build upon and avoiding the common failure of abstract, top-down market analysis.
The most potent business ideas are discovered, not forced. They arise naturally from being an active participant in a niche community and experiencing its problems firsthand. Instead of searching for 'an idea,' immerse yourself in a passion; the right opportunity will present itself.
This reframes the fundamental goal of a startup away from a supply-side focus (building) to a demand-side focus (discovery). The market's unmet need is the force that pulls a company and its product into existence, not the other way around.
The most enduring companies, like Facebook and Google, began with founders solving a problem they personally experienced. Trying to logically deduce a mission from market reports lacks the authenticity and passion required to build something great. The best ideas are organic, not analytical.
