Hi,

I'm an embedded software engineer and i have few years of experience in automotive industry. What i have realized for the past few years is that the state of software development in this industry is horrible and slaving away for other companies is getting me nowhere. Not being able to see the effects of my work, meager salary increases, if any, do not even cover the inflation. It does not do well for my job satisfaction.

I have been thinking about creating my own company for a while. I want to start doing something useful, I want to help others but do not know how. I have read about startups and went through some courses. Apparently i should find my product that is solving the customers problems. But how do i do that?
Should i just write emails to all companies in my city? "Hey, i want to know everything about your company. What are your processes? What tools are you using? How are you doing things? What are your biggest problems now?" It seems kind of ridiculous and i would assume no one would respond and provide such sensitive data. I would assume that small and medium companies would not want to even waste time for something like this. Not to mention big companies where they would not even consider responding to some guy's emails without any background. Even if i get some positive responses, it would probably be from companies operating in completely different industries. There would be no point in finding common issues in companies that operate differently, have different processes or use different tools. Or am i mistaken?

I should probably mention that i'm an immigrant in my current country and do not speak local language. Even though English is very well spoken here, it would probably cause even more negative effect towards my questions.

Please advise.