Frankly, I should have realized this was the case when some moderately complex problems felt impossible (because I was giving the best hours of my day to my 9-5).
Sure but that’s a wide spectrum too. How profitable? Do you want to make $200/mo profit, $2,000/mo or $20,000/mo? You can do the first with a few hours a week. The second, maybe if you’re lucky or have a wide network you can sell to. The last one? I doubt it’s possible with anything less than 20-30 hours a week, at least upfront.
People think it’s all luck because they build things just hoping someone will buy it and when they don’t “ah well, bad luck on this one”.
Instead you need to find a problem people actually have first and then build something to solve that. Then its much more likely that someone will pay for that solution.
It is not luck when you hear several people say something like, “I really wish it was easier to do x” and then you build a solution that makes doing x easier.
It most certainly is luck if you just think of a random cool idea and it happens to be profitable.
I don’t get it insofar that the latter (your own goal, e.g. becoming a writer or your own business) has way more potential in the long run than the former.
In best case they can pair with a co-founder that has a good intuition about „good enough“ and handles all the chores. But then a co-founder also adds its own set of problems.