Everybody thinks you need to be Google or Facebook or Uber if you want to make a real impact.
But that’s a lot of work and requires you to lock yourself in for a long time to a life of programming and bug fixing.
Instead I’d rather focus on finding a problem and fixing it, no matter how small. It makes life more fun to find a problem and solve it for good, rather than just putting out fires.
Take one example:
I love ginger beer. It is really the best drink in the world. In Japan, a single bottle (non alcoholic) costs about ¥400, or about £3. That is far too much for my liking, and not to mention that it is exceedingly uncommon, and I’ve only found 2 stores in Tokyo that stock my favourite beverage.
So I looked up online how to make it at home, and after trying and failing a few times, I found a really great site that went through how to make real fermented ginger beer!
Delicious, perfect, amazing.
I’m not saying you can reach a billion users like Facebook Messenger, but you are more than capable of helping people and making them happy, and there are plenty of monetisation opportunities for problem solvers.