[riklomas]

Look for problems. It's hard to sit and think of ideas, even if you do, most of the ideas will change on contact with potential customers.

Look at what you're strong at and what you enjoy. If you're seeing customers struggle with other businesses solutions, then there might be a way to solve that problem in a better way.

Being a good listener helps - get the feedback loop going as quickly as possible. Don't take anything personally if a customer doesn't like what you're doing. They could be right. Iterate on the initial idea. Don't spend too long building the first version of anything as it'll probably look different in a year.

[wikwocket]

I think this is good advice. It's better to see first-hand pain points that businesses experience as opposed to looking for an "idea" i.e. dreaming of a solution and then trying to find a matching problem that it solves.

If you start up with an "Uber for X"-tier idea, you may spend half your time educating people that they could use your solution.

On the other hand, it is difficult to watch a non-techie business worker perform their daily tasks for a few hours without seeing something that could be improved. A macro here, some workflow automation there, etc. Find a theme and you may be able to build something that solves a lot of problems.