[davismwfl]

That's it, once you stop thinking about the typical tech ideas as your central focus and start thinking about things you can do quickly and make money at the world has millions of waiting clients and ideas.

I have brought this up before on HN, if you look around in any town you will find plumbers, electricians and other "trades" people (or mom & pop shops) who started their business and have some basic business sense. Many are sitting on businesses that have high margins and can easily become multi-million dollar businesses (or already are) and make their founders quite wealthy. A lot of time people get so focused in their narrow area they forget to look outside of the industry or type of work they do. I am not suggesting you become a plumber, just that if you look at those businesses there are always needs to fulfill for people. And technology as a whole seriously ignores traditional businesses like these, a mistake I do not make.

To find these ideas, talk to everyone. I even found clients from talking to fellow parents at my kids sporting events. We'd talk about work they'd open up where they worked and I'd chat them up about what the opportunities and issues were. 90% of communication is listening and asking calculated (not in the evil sense) questions.

I always follow the rule that every issue, complaint or failure is an opportunity to provide value, even if it was my own.