The initial idea rarely becomes the sustaining business for successful startups. The reason for this, is that your idea is a "wild ass guess" until you talk to

The initial idea rarely becomes the sustaining business for successful startups. The reason for this, is that your idea is a "wild ass guess" until you talk to real potential customers, to see if you're actually solving a problem they need solved. The idea for a startup is usually just a hypothesis. Once you go out and talk to real customers about what you're offering you'll gain some insight and new information. Most of the time, your original hypothesis is off the mark. Your idea may be slightly off, or completely wrong together, but armed with your new knowledge you can alter your hypothesis. Repeat the process and eventually your evolving hypothesis will become more refined until you have a scalable and repeatable business model. This is the "search" that he's referring to.