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I disagree with that. If you make what you want, you at least have one user. If you make what you think other people want, you might end up with zero! Nobody

I disagree with that. If you make what you want, you at least have one user. If you make what you think other people want, you might end up with zero! Nobody wanted an open-source Unix-like OS, a keyboardless touch screen with third-party apps, a mini hard drive with a display and headphone jack tacked on, maps that could be infinitely panned instead of clicking arrows, etc. But they ended up being some of the defining products of our time. The worst case of working on your own thing is that you make something nobody else wants. The worst case of working on something you think other people want is that nobody wants it, and you get burned out.

edmundsauto 3y ago
Nobody wanted those products but they did want the problems solved that those products addressed. IMO, focus on the problems - those often exist before the solutions have manifested.
- wruza 3y ago
  The tricky part is to learn the exact problems and not some confused second-hand ideas about what/where they are. Sure there are people with good consulting instincts, but in general you can only solve problems that you’ve experienced firsthand.
- kagevf 3y ago
  Excellent point!
type0 3y ago
Nobody wanted a horseless carriage in the beginning either
janejeon 3y ago
> If you make what you want, you at least have one user This is it. This is how I approach in writing software. 99.9% of the stuff I write is going to have one user. But it's one more than zero, and in the 0.1% of the cases where it does have >1 users, well, I call that a success.