Don’t start a business until people are asking you to (2016)

I think this verbiage is a little bit more provocative than is necessary, but it's still _true_. I've met with, worked with, and chatted with a lot of founders (both in the 'indie hackers' / lifestyle businesses sense and in the YC / venture-backed sense) and the gulf between people who are running something because they have a keen understanding and kinship with the problem that they are solving and people who "always wanted to start a business and do the whole founder thing" [^1] is... dramatic. The latter cohort is _much_ more inclined to invest in branding, meta-structure, and 'big-picture thinking' as opposed to finding design partners [^2], doing duct-tape work, and so on.

[^1]: Their words, not mine! [^2]: Not in any rigorous/bureaucratic sense, just in the sense of "finding people who are willing to work closely with you to provide feedback on how you're solving their problem"

>I meet a lot of people who want to start a business. Some don’t have an idea yet. I don’t understand this. It’s like wanting to wear a bandage when you don’t have a wound.

Well, that's if you base it on "passion" and "scatching a personal itch" and such. If you just want to make money, it's enough (and often better) to merely want to start a business, any business. Then you check the market conditions, find a good niche, and execute.

People with succesful businesses making whatever didn't necessarily want to be in the "making X" business. They wanted to be in the "making money" or "making sales" business. Some of the most succesful businesses the onwers could not care less what they sell, as long as it sells.

This clicked after I've read several such stories (e.g. from a guy who had a factory and was just a generic product manufacturer that builds "whitelabel" stuff for others. He could not care less about generic manufacturing as a "passion", it was just a job he could do well, and saw he could make profit and eventually sell, as he did for tens of millions), and also met some such people in different businesses.

I'm pretty sure most tech startup founders don't care about some specific business idea "passion" either. They appear to do, but if they did, they'd insist to their original "passion"/idea and wont pivot to something completely different all the time, just because it's more profitable.

Twitter started as Odeo and was about podcasts of all things. Groupon was about consumer activism. Instagram started as a service for "checking in" particular locations. Slack came from a game development company making a game.

The problem is not "merely wanting to start a business and not knowing what kind". The problem is "merely wanting to start a business and not acting on that".

Title needs "2016".