What I would tell my younger self is to spend more time reading through YC's resources about how to start a business. In my case, I built something that I thought there was a need for; but I should have spent a lot more time iterating off of tangible customer needs.
IE, I should have found a handful of customers who needed tight integration among these use cases and let their needs drive the implementation.
Why? There are already plenty of applications that do the same functions. (MS Office, Google Drive, ect, ect.) These applications are mature, and well-understood by the whole market.
I would suggest finding a few customers who are hampered by poor interoperability among 3+ applications / use cases, and focus on their use cases. It'll take you 15+ years to be as mature as products like MS Office, Google Drive, ect; but if you solve a niche's tangible, need, they won't care, because they can't operate their business without you.
What I would tell my younger self is to spend more time reading through YC's resources about how to start a business. In my case, I built something that I thought there was a need for; but I should have spent a lot more time iterating off of tangible customer needs.
IE, I should have found a handful of customers who needed tight integration among these use cases and let their needs drive the implementation.
Why? There are already plenty of applications that do the same functions. (MS Office, Google Drive, ect, ect.) These applications are mature, and well-understood by the whole market.
I would suggest finding a few customers who are hampered by poor interoperability among 3+ applications / use cases, and focus on their use cases. It'll take you 15+ years to be as mature as products like MS Office, Google Drive, ect; but if you solve a niche's tangible, need, they won't care, because they can't operate their business without you.