Starting your own business is one of the most productive and meaningful things that you can do with your life. It is also something that is perfectly rational.

Many people dream of starting their own businesses. But very few of us even get near to doing it. Some people have difficulties with being able to do what is technically and economically possible; other people have difficulties with being able to think rationally and act rationally.

But many problems lie squarely in the realms of psychology and psychotherapy. Such problems are precisely the sort that businesses should rely on psychologists and philosophers to help them.

Here are the three problems that we need to avoid: 1) People think that if they have good ideas, someone else must already have them; and 2) People think that because other people have already got the business idea, others must have it too. This kind of melancholy thesis states that capitalism is enormously overdeveloped; it already has all the businesses that it needs, so there is nothing that a new business owner could do to become a successful one.

For us to understand why this is wrong, we need only ask ourselves if we are constantly happy in all areas of our lives.

Business is actually defined as the attempt to help another group of people who are trying to solve their own problems. The reason is that the business is only truly mature when every human being in the world has become completely satisfied. When we spot problems in our own lives or in the lives of others, we identify a business which has been waiting to develop. Capitalist effort (and the potential for legitimate unemployment) ends when all our problems have been solved.

What businesses the world needs is for every day to be like the average person and notice where there are difficulties, shortfalls, frictions or inefficiencies in any area of life. Some markets are so mature that there are actually no problems at all. It is unlikely that there are many problems with how much ‘unga’ we buy or the number of different ways to cut ‘sukuma wiki’. Some markets are very mature already, as economists say.

Sadly, many areas of our lives are plagued by problems – big and small. We all have situations where we’d like a solution to something, but none seems to exist, at least not in the form or at the price that suits us: we’re having a particularly nasty argument with our partner and no one will help us; our environment is dispiritingly ugly; there are very few good restaurants near our houses, which should be able to offer us something interesting. The media we consume feeds us only superficially. Many people have problems that are large or small – but no one seems to want to fix them. It is frustrating to have problems in many aspects of our lives, but the fact that the majority of our economies are still in a state of great indeterminacy suggests that our economies are really poor.

When we talk about new technology and we talk about what we think about it, what we are thinking is equally important as whether something is technically innovative or psychologically innovative. We often think that businesses will only flourish when new technologies are developed or when a new type of motor or medicine is developed. But it is not surprising when companies are founded that don’t solve new problems simply by creating new machines; but by solving problems effectively because they have new insights, based on their own psychological experience, into other people’s problems.

Businesses have a very strong culture that encourages entrepreneurs to research market conditions. But most of the world’s good ideas are not very well described by marketers who come up with them, and so are not able to be successfully promoted.

The best source of insight into the kinds of problems that businesses can deal with is the individual. It is only by being able to observe and learn from the problems that people have experienced, that a business can prosper. If you want to understand the needs of millions of potential customers, first, try to understand what needs you have personally. People think that doing market research is as smart as asking questions that you think people would like to ask. But the truth is that doing what you know yourself can provide much better insight into what other people are thinking.

Often businesses fail because they fail to grasp the problems that other people are experiencing. They cannot help them if they are very confused and fail to find solutions that others think are needed. When companies fail to get to know other people, it is psychologically more dangerous than a problem of execution.

Another hurdle is more personal: we are very aware that we have problems that we don’t know about – but nobody seems to care about them. Being able to run a successful business depends on being able to clearly identify the problems that we are most interested in solving for others and ourselves. It is not enough to just pretend to be creative or that we will help others to solve their problems. Some people find some problems intriguing, but others do not cause us to want to devote the time and energy needed to attempt to solve them.

Many of these tough psychological questions are not addressed in the modern business education system. Business schools teach us to do things that are helpful to people. But they often fail to help us with difficult psychological decisions that we need to make.

• What problems are people still having that others can help solve?
• There are a number of problems that I have encountered that are important to other people. What problems in my life are relevant to other people?
• How much do I want to help people who have problems like those others are having?

Businesses can be seen as a very dignified and creative field in which we try to solve other people’s problems and make a little money while we are at it. That people are still deeply dissatisfied with their lives is tragic and an ongoing provocation and inspiration to those who wish to become entrepreneurs.