The problem is how to get exposure to B2B processes as a software developer. Unless you have previous work experience as a sales guy/marketing/inventory procurement/etc. or a MBA or already developing B2B tools, how can you learn about the needs and opportunities?
Just talk to people. Ask everyone you meet what they hate about their job, what stupid program they're forced to use, what boring repetitive task they do.
People love to talk about themselves, and they love to gripe about what's broken and annoying, so it's much easier than you might think. Finding problems to solve is actually extremely easier. The harder art is doing the follow up to understand if there's a good business model for someone who solves the problem.
Talk to people. Really, that's how it starts. There are niches you won't even know exist until someone mentions that they have a problem doing X, or that Y is tedious and they spend 5 hours each week doing it.
Many of these niches are technologically very simple. e.g, there's someone I used to talk to online who makes a software package for manufacturing that consists of little more than basic geometry and a good UI. To a customer base that hates math and needs to do certain calculations frequently, that $29.95 program is perfect.
I'm wondering if you went straight into a startup or sole proprietorship?
If you ever spent time in a mid or large sized company and talked with people in various departments and what sucks about their day to day tasks, then ideas are abound (or as previously mentioned, make friends with people who work in such environments, and pick their brains about what sucks). PMs have their pain points, sales guys have their pain points, IT guys have their pain points, etc.
Try to make a lot of friends in college. You'll gain exposure to more industries that way and will eventually come across something that needs a better solution.
I'll give you that, indeed networking (in conventions, general friends-making and so on) as resulted for me in ideas and opportunities in sectors I have no prior experience in.
This is where a business co-founder is just as valuable as a technical co-founder. The trick is that business co-founder has to have equal respect for technical crafts of programming and design. If they also have startup experience, or at least good intuition about where to focus when you have extremely limited resources, that's gold right there.
