Starting a Business: Listen to People
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Aashna Doshi, a young software engineer, left Google to launch a startup in the artificial intelligence space.
Before taking this step, she had created the "0 to 1" podcast with a colleague, where she interviewed numerous entrepreneurs and technology professionals, asking them to share the journeys that had led them to become founders of successful multimillion-dollar companies.
Drawing on the relationships and knowledge she gained through that experience, she decided to launch Bounty, a startup that aims to use artificial intelligence to help companies achieve tangible results in areas such as lead generation and other repetitive operations.
Despite the stability and prestige of her role at Google, Doshi chose to devote herself full-time to her new entrepreneurial venture (source: "I Left a Google Job I Loved," Business Insider).
What Entrepreneurs Can Learn from This News
The Best Business Ideas Come from Understanding Problems First
Google is full of millions of blog posts with titles like "The X Best Business Ideas to Start in 20XX."
These articles are always created with one goal in mind: to attract clicks before trying to sell you some scam business course.
I know because I know the internet.
There are still too many people who spend months, sometimes years, searching for the perfect business idea.
They mistakenly believe that successful companies are born from a stroke of genius, a sudden flash of inspiration.
Yet the market tells us the exact opposite every single day, and it does so for free if we're willing to listen.
The best business opportunities don't come from brainstorming sessions around a whiteboard; they come from talking to people and understanding the challenges they face.
Before founding her startup, Aashna Doshi spent a great deal of time interviewing entrepreneurs, managers, and technology professionals.
She listened to their stories, their frustrations, and how they dealt with everyday challenges, and that's something many people underestimate.
When you're too focused on your own idea, it's easy to lose sight of what really matters: the problems people are actively trying to solve.
That's where the best companies come from.
If my words and Aashna's example aren't enough, perhaps a few other authoritative sources saying exactly the same thing will convince you:
- "Be Good," Paul Graham, founder of Y Combinator (the accelerator that funded Airbnb, Stripe, Dropbox, Reddit, and many other business giants).
- "Where Does Your Product Fit in the Market?," Stanford Graduate School of Business.
- "MIT People Want to Know How Things Work," MIT.
"But Facebook was born that way, from a sudden flash of inspiration!"
No; if you watch the movie, you'll notice that when Jesse Eisenberg, playing Mark Zuckerberg, starts creating Facebook, he begins by saying, "Okay, let's give them [the students] what they want."
And that's essentially how it happened in real life, too; just read the history of Facebook on Wikipedia.
Is it clear enough now?
Think about how many companies are born because someone notices a specific problem:
- A customer who wastes too much time on a process.
- A company that struggles to generate new leads.
- A professional who repeats the same tasks every day.
Behind many successful companies is simply someone who paid close attention to a situation and asked, "Is there a better way to do this?"
That's why entrepreneurs who get results spend so much time listening.
One practical way to discover business ideas, or find ways to differentiate yourself from the competition, is to read negative reviews of products and companies.
Most people read reviews to decide whether to buy something, while entrepreneurs should read them because they reveal unmet needs.
When you notice the same complaint coming up again and again, you may have identified a market opportunity.
If customers repeatedly complain about poor customer service, slow deliveries, or missing features, that recurring frustration could become the foundation of a new business or a powerful competitive advantage.
The more frequently a problem occurs, the stronger the signal that people are willing to pay for a better solution.
This principle applies to every industry.
It doesn't matter whether we're talking about artificial intelligence, restaurants, e-commerce, or local services.
If you still don't know what kind of business to start, you probably don't need to spend more time searching for ideas; you need to spend more time observing people and listening to their complaints.