This reminds me of 2 pieces of advice I received from 2 early mentors, both 3 words, and diametrically opposed.

1. "Scratch an itch."

2. "Find a customer."

#1 comes naturally to a hacker. I'm always building things for myself. Then I think, "If I need it, someone else probably does, too."

#2 does not come naturally at all. I have to work at it. Frankly, I'd rather build stuff than talk to people (although that has changed quite a bit over the years).

FWIW, I have found very little success with #1 (one big exception: a program generator I wrote for myself was very well received by others).

#2 has worked beautifully. Every time I have ever found and satisfied a first customer, the second, third, fourth, etc. were much easier to find and satisfy because they needed the same thing. What great advice. I wish I had listened much earlier.

Original thread:  http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1535646