After a handful of side projects that never got the traction I was hoping for, I came upon Bret Victor's recent CUSEC talk on principle based inventing.
Unless you're lucky enough to stumble on an idea that has instant traction, any path to success is going to be hard, with lots of periods of self/market-doubt, and lots of opportunities to quit. I think the only way to get through those times is pursuing an idea that stems from a deep principle you believe in. This is currently what I'm looking for: identifying my humanistic principles, and seeing what ideas are natural conclusions from it. No more random market based ideas.
Unless you're lucky enough to stumble on an idea that has instant traction, any path to success is going to be hard, with lots of periods of self/market-doubt, and lots of opportunities to quit. I think the only way to get through those times is pursuing an idea that stems from a deep principle you believe in. This is currently what I'm looking for: identifying my humanistic principles, and seeing what ideas are natural conclusions from it. No more random market based ideas.