"The way to get startup ideas is not to try to think of startup ideas. It's to look for problems, preferably problems you have yourself." —from How to get startup ideas by Paul Graham.
"Less than a third of consumer startup ideas emerged out of founders trying to solve their own problem."—from How to Kickstart and Scale a Consumer Business by Lenny Rachitsky.
It's a pattern I also saw in many successful entrepreneurs. Whatever problem they set out to solve when they started was personal to them. For many others, it quickly became personal.
You've probably experienced it yourself. When something feels personal, you are willing to give more, to infuse more energy and effort into it. Solving or overcoming the problem is as much about the challenge as it is about your identity. Starting a company is challenging and requires a lot from the entrepreneurs.
As Will Durant, the author of The Story of Civilization, said in an interview about great men and women in history, "It is demand that brings out the exceptional qualities of man."
Entrepreneurs, inventors and innovators are not cut from a different cloth. They come across a challenge that feels personal and decide to do something about it, making the solution universal.
"If we understand and feel that every animal, person and object is our very own self, we cannot go wrong. That is the experience of love." — Rupert Spira.