Figuring out how to be useful to people is hard. Especially is you have to find congruity between what you like to do and what they need. Most of us look for a job "opening." I'd rather decide who I want to work for–then figure out what I can do to help them.

PaulGraham.com: Do Things that Don't Scale, 2013-Jul

Almost
all startups are fragile initially. And that's one of the biggest
things inexperienced founders and investors (and reporters and
know-it-alls on forums) get wrong about them. They unconsciously
judge larval startups by the standards of established ones. They're
like someone looking at a newborn baby and concluding "there's no
way this tiny creature could ever accomplish anything."