But to me it seems like the lottery. You try enough things, in enough of the right places, for long enough and eventually something sticks and you get some traction. Most people don’t stick with it long enough to find something that connects for them though.

Ideally you’re working on a product where you already have some legitimacy, thus avoiding the cold start problem.

The hard part is not building a working product. The hard part is finding people to use it.

Yes, building the working product is the fun part. Yes it's the part that overlaps your current skill set. Stop doing it.

Instead of building products, go find customers. It doesn't matter what they want, you can build anything, what matters is they have pain and are looking to pay to make it go away.

That initially means going out to talk to people. Ask about their lives. Find pain. Ask about how much they'd pay to make that pain go away.

The paying part is serious. No one likes tables that rock at the restaurant. But no one pays for a solution- you just push something under the rocking leg.

I know, I know, you just want to code, the customers should just find you, leave cash, and leave. Alas, you and everyone else. That's unfortunately not how it works.