That's one of the important take-aways: technical success does not equal commercial success. Spending years of your life creating a sophisticated, polished, technically impressive solution to a non-existent problem is not a recipe for success.
I struggle with this more than anything. I shrug off simple ideas because I perceive them to be amateurish and unimportant, and instead stress out over something bigger that may be infinitely less successful.
I'm gradually learning to just work on something, as sitting around waiting for some magical idea is a waste of time. Not to mention, you can discover much bigger problems and opportunities from working on anything as opposed to nothing.
I can't stres enough how important your comment is. This is exactly the advice I got from a few of the very successful entrepreneurs that I've met.
you can discover much bigger problems and opportunities from working on anything as opposed to nothing
That turns out to be so true. Once you start working on something and talking with potential customers there will be plenty of opportunity to adjust or scale your idea or even to jump to something totally different that you never would have known about if you hadn't just got started in the first place.
Obviously given the choice most people would prefer a world beater idea. One that has the potential for a lot of money and self actualization but you could wait forever for that idea to materialize.
Since you can't make the perfect idea happen you're way better off picking the best idea available and just starting.
