Many of the best companies are started by founders solving their own problems. Most college students, however, have very limited problem exposure, and when following this advice, end up building the same 10 boring projects again and again (though we’ve seen a little more variety recently a la LLM wrappers).

For the student determined to solve problems outside their own life experience, there is often uncertainty around what problems or industry to tackle. Deciding on an industry often feels arbitrary and ideating sucks. A paralysis emerges. While figuring out these questions may be the necessary and mature thing to do in the long term, I often find myself impatient. I want to write code and work with customers, not think about industries.

So if you’re like I am, have an itch to ship but still have not yet developed an affinity towards a particular industry, I present the following heuristic to guide your search: build for your future company. Let me explain why via a brief story.

The summer after my freshman year, I worked on tooling for e-commerce merchants. Over that period, I met with dozens of DTC founders, leaders, and their team members. I got an intimate understanding of what a successful direct to consumer (DTC) operation looks like. Unfortunately, this acquired domain knowledge is not super transferable unless I’m looking to start a DTC brand of my own.

Contrast this with the summer after my sophomore year in which I built tooling for sales teams at B2B SaaS companies. Over the summer I met with over 50 sales directors. I learned what data and tools they use, how they set goals for their teams, and what their workflows looks like. I met people that I would one day want to work with when I scale out a sales team of my own. I learned what gave certain teams completive advantages. This knowledge is highly transferable to whatever B2B SaaS company I build in the future. Furthermore, there is no other way to have this experience and learning if I weren’t working a on products for sales teams (lots of my conversations were under NDA).

There are a few obvious other areas that match this heuristic: helping teams with recruiting, marketing, or HR. Even if you don’t succeed in what you’re working, there will be a wealth of takeaways. And even if you never actually build something, the discovery phase will be useful on its own.

This approach is not without caveat. Generally, these areas mentioned are highly competitive niches and can be quite saturated. My claim is not that they are good areas to go into in the long run. They perfect for the student not looking to leave school but instead work on a side project.

So, if solving your own problems isn’t compelling for you, try solving your future problems. ∎