I’ll start with one of my favorite thoughts, by Alex Haley:
“Many a young person tells me he wants to be a writer. I always encourage such people, but I also explain that there’s a big difference between “being a writer” and writing. In most cases these individuals are dreaming of wealth and fame, not the long hours alone at the typewriter. “You’ve got to want to write,” I say to them, “not want to be a writer.”
The reality is that writing is a lonely, private and poor-paying affair. For every writer kissed by fortune, there are thousands more whose longing is never requited. Even those who succeed often know long periods of neglect and poverty. I did.”
When the startup market is hot, like it was in 1999/2000 and as it is now in 2014, many people suddenly discover they want to “be an entrepreneur.” They find a co-founder who also wants to join the “startup scene”, brainstorm a few ideas, pick one that is plausible, hack up a product, then buy a wheelbarrow they can use to take their money to the bank.
They almost never need that wheelbarrow. This is because starting a company is as Alex Haley described writing: the best companies are not started by people who want to “be an entrepreneur.” They are started by people who are knowledgable and passionate about a very specific problem, feel they can solve it, and then get busy solving it, often not caring that much about how large of a company they can build as a side effect. They certainly don’t have “getting acquired” as their goal.
I’d highly recommend you read this essay by Paul Graham: How to Get Startup Ideas. A great line from it:
“The verb you want to be using with respect to startup ideas is not “think up” but “notice.” At YC we call ideas that grow naturally out of the founders’ own experiences “organic” startup ideas. The most successful startups almost all begin this way.”
The best entrepreneurs work on ideas that grow out of their personal interests and passions, and they start the company because it is the best way to bring their vision to market. Many also do want to get rich, but the getting rich happens during the years of toiling away, honing their ideas via trial and error and hard work.
I think this leaves you with two options:
- Find a startup that is already up and going and needs someone with your skills. If you join early enough, you may even become a co-founder.
- Pick an area of interest and passion and go very deep in it. Become more knowledgeable about it than anyone you know and see if you find an opportunity in that market that you just have to address: something that needs to exist in the world. And if you don’t find it, don’t start your company.
Good luck.
Best of Quora 