This was an entertaining and interesting story but at the end of it I couldn't help but feel a bit discouraged: "great so this means I have to go find somebody

This was an entertaining and interesting story but at the end of it I couldn't help but feel a bit discouraged: "great so this means I have to go find somebody to mentor me? To fund me? Should I be talking to more potential users about my idea? What if zero of them cream their pants? What if they all do and someone steals the idea... I'm just one guy, two people are guaranteed to finish this faster. And I thought the OTHER guys said the other day not to talk about your idea until you had something visible, and that's been working well for me. What if I waste my time on this and nobody likes it. Etc." I think it's important to remember there are many ways to start a product and a business around that product. If the approach in the post appeals and works for some guys - great, go for it. Worst case all you lose is some money and time, but for most of us that's NOT the end of the world. I'm not comfortable going their route because I really believe I have solid ideas that will generate revenue without needing more funding than my savings can provide, and these are my ideas that I don't want to share ownership with anybody else. A mentor would be nice but these ideas are also about my personality, and I've been through too many situations where people with more charisma and experience try to tell me what to do and I give in to their greater wisdom at the cost of feeling somehow cheated... I want to burn my own fingers, for some reason, and that's the route I'm going to take. (I suspect that what will happen, though, is that in the process of burning my fingers I will meet a great medic.)