It's a good question. I received some advice about this young-- and it wasn't about startups, it was about careers generally. If you don't know what you want to do, but you know the general area, proximity is your solution. Get as close as you can, and watch carefully. The example cited was Cornelius Vanderbilt. He sailed goods around and dabbled in ship building for decades before he got into the railroad and steamship business that built his empire. He became deeply familiar with the skills and problem space: market economics, securitization, transportation, cost competition, steam engines. Eventually, he became the first person to use a limited liability corporation to accumulate private wealth by offering services that transported goods and people, at brutally competitive prices.
Go work in something that interests you, and watch for opportunities. Uber and Flexport are proving that Vanderbilt was right, and transportation is still sexy. For myself, I like finance. There's plenty of room in healthcare, especially senior care, education, security... I think for the best ideas, you have to know something. The lightning bolt out of the clear blue sky to twenty-year-olds with no life or work experience is probably played out.
Go work in something that interests you, and watch for opportunities. Uber and Flexport are proving that Vanderbilt was right, and transportation is still sexy. For myself, I like finance. There's plenty of room in healthcare, especially senior care, education, security... I think for the best ideas, you have to know something. The lightning bolt out of the clear blue sky to twenty-year-olds with no life or work experience is probably played out.