The Fatal Flaw in Most Startup Ideas

I disagree with the idea presented by this post. Simply looking for problems that people know they need solutions for is a safe approach, but not necessary a good one. For example, I know that people need to eat, and it's true that restaurants are good business ideas--but it doesn't necessarily mean getting into the restaurant business is a good move for a startup.

There are plenty of scenarios where successful products come out of solving problems people didn't think they have, until the product was marketed to them. The iPhone and iPods are very obvious examples. Snapchat, Gmail, Whatsapp, Uber, Airbnb, Facebook, and the list goes on and on. In hindsight these products all address problems we now know we have, but before the products became popular, most people did not actively see these as significant problems (e.g. I didn't know I had much need for an app that gives me transportation, before I started using Uber for the first time).

Yes, if you look for problems that have very high demands, that is a safe approach that would lead to a solid business, but that it could also be the case that the safe approach would lead to more competition. Most problems that people need solutions for have already been considered--the more demand there is, the more attempts there have been to find solutions for these problems.