1) >>> you find a problem you deal with on a daily basis. <<< Agree with this. As they say - necessity is the mother of invention. A lot of the episodes I list

1) >>> you find a problem you deal with on a daily basis. <<< Agree with this. As they say - necessity is the mother of invention. A lot of the episodes I listened to on the Podcast - How I built this with Guy Raz - were about people getting frustrated with a problem they faced on a daily basis and deciding to fix it (usually starting quite small). 2) >>> This is probably why there are so many more startups pitching development tools than, for instance, something to make the lives of truckers a little easier. <<< This makes sense if you're a developer or work in software. Eg, I'm a Product person who built tools on the side to scratch my itch. My platform was Google App Engine (GAE). When the GAE GUI was deprecated, I realized that I really found a GUI much more convenient and so built - https://nocommandline.com https://nocommandline.com and in the process fixed stuff I didn't like about the old GUI. I think the trick here is to set right expectation i.e. recognize that not every idea is going to be a Unicorn or a big business. It could remain 'just a side project' or turn out to be something that just brings you extra income (pay your rent, weekly gas bill, etc).