These are definitely some validate starting points. I recommend giving some sort of chronological order to the process. With emphasis on spending quality time up front defining what problem space you are attempting to solve. Once that is defined, you might have a more clear idea about your potential target customer. From there you could actually build better traits about your customer. This process is typically known as building personas. This part of the process is helpful and helps you and your team focus on what are the real themes/problems needing to be solved.

I do agree that reading definitely helps but one book isn't enough. There are several books in this space that are helpful but probably deserve their own thread. Especially around strategy. Maybe worth building out a collective comprehensive recommendations list one day.

Surveys are great but wont capture the true understanding of your customer or the heavy user of what ever product you create. One needs spend some quality time (1hr initially) with these customers so you can build out a better persona which will help you hone and focus on creating the right solution. Then you can use future surveys after gaining trust to get valuable feedback. I do however understand this is a "fill the top of the funnel" approach which isn't bad.

However that said you make some really great points throughout your posting about falling in love with the problem which will allow you to create a great solution.