This is a meta-comment, and I'm meta-sorry for that, but I wanted to say that HN has got to be the only social news site that has articles sit at the top for some time before anyone comments on them.
Is it that people are actually reading and digest the content first?
If I had to guess, the problem behind <i>most</i> failed companies (by young and old people alike) is building something people don't want.<p>Also, don't forget that it is the same fiddling around that leads young people to develop products that older folks could not come up with.<p>YC has a t-shirt that reads "Build something people want."
That's why I believe there is such a low success rate of websites. The itch you are scratching is unlikely to be one that others will a) want solved and b) want to pay to be solved.<p>The best serial entrepreneurs (multiple 7+ exits) I know all have a structured approach to picking a project, and it always starts with a statistics backed market test of an either fake product or hacked together prototype.
There is a reason to be technology driven. Most markets are mature and hard to break into. The only good time for startups to break into a market is when there's a technological disruption they can take advantage of. Otherwise, GE or Microsoft can do it better than you. So it is actually a good bet to take brand new technologies and find a use for them.
@zaidf At least the founders of the company must want their own product, like @hwijaya was saying. However that doesn't mean anybody else does.<p>Also a great quote on the need/want subject: “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.” [Henry Ford]
Not a bad point but he says: "Steve Jobs wanted to build a computer that could show the beautiful typography that he likes so much."<p>From what I've read this wasn't the purpose at all - he (or perhaps more Woz) liked the technology and so wanted to find a way to make a living making great technology.
When I started out, I pitched a technology solution to my (now) advisor.
He answered: "What problem are you trying to solve?"<p>I learned a lot from this question, and ask it any time a newcomer pitches me a technology solution.
Me myself being a young entrepreneur (20), I can definitely see this guys point. However, I think that there are many (probably unsuccessful) entrepreneurs like this, no matter what age or market segment. Maybe the young ones just haven't been burned and given up/changed careers yet.<p>Some people just don't understand that a 'good idea' is only a very small fraction of what goes into making a good business. The real judge of an entrepreneur is NOT the ideas they come up with, but how they execute them, and also WHICH ideas they execute.
Not sure if he's right with regards of building great company. We're also on our ways of solving our own problem at the moment.<p>So far, i can say that, the only concern that i personally have with solving our own problem is, "is it just us that have the problem or other people got the same issue?" (a.k.a is this a big enough problem where we should spend our valuable time on? or should we move to another project).<p>From my own experience, 2 benefits that i personally have with solving our own problems are: you understand exactly on what is the 80% of the pains and when things get tough, you can encourage yourself that worst case scenario is you use it yourself.
I think there are as many successful companies started by careful market analysis as there are company's started by an entrepreneur's mission to solve a personal problem.<p>Jeff Bezos coldly examined markets and decided books were the right entry point into ecommerce. However, these don't make the best pr stories, and so aren't told...or in some cases, the story is just fabricated after the fact, such as Pierre Omidyar building ebay to sell pez dispensers.
"Most of the time, this leads to the well-known case of solutions looking for problems - beautiful technology that can’t become a profitable business."<p>OP dances around the solution, but never gets there:<p>Find a customer.<p>They're everywhere. And they need everything (or so it seems sometimes). And they're not bashful.<p>Once you have a half dozen customers in <i>any</i> industry, identify something they would all love. Pretty good bet building a business around <i>that</i>, not what you love.
The root of the issue is not idea-centricism, but self-centricism.<p>People think their ideas are unique, but they're not. They think that <i>their</i> implementation of a pre-existing thing is different or better, but it's not. They think <i>their</i> service is worth paying for or acquiring, but it's usually not.<p>That's why there's so damn much me-tooism in the "startup" world (and everywhere else):<p>"If it feels special or new or exciting to me, it must be exciting or new or special."<p>We live out our entire lives looking out of our own skulls, mired in our own viewpoints, so everyone feels like he or she is the center of the universe (for better and for worse).<p>It's basic human nature, and therefore people who are not like that are a very rare item indeed. Overcoming it can make you an immensely powerful force.