[turc1656]

At the risk of sounding less than helpful or pessimistic, the first thing that jumped out at me when reading your post is that you are going about this backwards.

I'm not saying you can't or wont' succeed. I have no idea.

But it seems like the first thing that happened is that you decided you wanted to start a business. Usually it's the reverse - you get inspired by discovering a problem and realize you have the skillset and motivation to solve it and then you come to the realization that you need to start a business to do that. For founders/entrepreneurs with experience having done that previously, this is likely a scenario with a much higher probability of success.

But I imagine the success rate of people who say "I want to start my own business" and then look for a business to start have much lower success rates.

I'm not trying to rain no your parade at all. Just wanted to give you something to think about before you spend a fortune in time and/or money starting something. I could easily be wrong, though. Just food for thought.

[fennecfoxen]

It sounds like you are describing the Silicon Valley ideal, but things like "finding a good business to start" are very much a traditional approach, and I am confident they will teach you about how to do market research to this end in business schools.

[wpietri]

Is it a traditional approach? I've met a lot of entrepreneurs and small business owners, and I have heard of almost nobody starting from "I have started a business, now what should we do" being successful. Bezos arguably took that approach, but that story gets told so much precisely because it was unusual. More often it turns out like Webvan, where the lack of deep domain knowledge means making noob mistakes that kill the business.

And I'm not sure business schools are a big help here. The vast majority of MBAs end up joining mid-sized to large existing companies as high flyers, and I think the curriculum aims to support that.

[travisjungroth]

I completely agree. The "natural" business is a much better recipe. I consider it a strike against me and will have to make up for it in other areas.

I'm still going forward, because I think starting a business still has a better expected outcome for me than working at a job.

[ping_pong]

Startups that are founded by people that don't have a lot of skin in the game are exactly the ones that will close up shop after a year, leaving their customers high and dry. It's a meme now about startups with their "Thanks for joining us on our journey, stay tuned for our next startup!"

If you are a company looking for a problem to solve, it's not going to work unless you get lucky. Find something you're passionate about and that is what will drive you to keep going, so that you don't just abandon your customers when things get tough.

[WalterSear]

I'd argue that people who aren't married to the shape of their venture have some of their own advantages compared to those who base their business model on a preformed thesis. Namely, they are more ready to go where the money turns out to be, even if the direction is less glamorous than the original idea.

[zadkey]

I saw an earlier HN post last week where a sales person and a software engineer were looking for an idea guy.

[inkeddeveloper]

They are a solution looking for a problem and we all know that doesn't work.