One is that you are, like a lot of people, modestly averse to doing something novel that seems hard. (E.g., "I could never run a 5k." Actually you could; you just don't know how to get there from where you are.) That's a solvable problem. The main trick is to get started; oonlynce you are doing research on customers, the hacker part of your brain will have data and something to start optimizing, so you'll be fine.
If that's you, try something like Lean Startup Machine. I volunteer as a mentor for it, and the team context and short timelines force you to get out there and start bothering random strangers. Who it turns out are not bothered at all, and are happy to talk. Once you get good at it, it's even fun. From there, read a few of the Lean Startup books; they're full of techniques.
The other thing you could mean is that you are literally terrified of dealing with potential customers. That is also not unusual. Programmers skew shy. The main reason I spent most of my teenage years learning to code was that I was awkward and people were scary.
If that bothers you, go see somebody about it. Call up a few therapists and have a meeting with the ones you like. If you find somebody solid, dig into the social anxiety. I know it goes against the hacker ethos to spend 20 hours dealing with a professional when you could spend 200 or 2000 hours trying to solve the problem yourself. But in this case, I think it's worth trying to get quickly to the think you really want to do, which is make and sell some things that people are excited to buy.
One is that you are, like a lot of people, modestly averse to doing something novel that seems hard. (E.g., "I could never run a 5k." Actually you could; you just don't know how to get there from where you are.) That's a solvable problem. The main trick is to get started; oonlynce you are doing research on customers, the hacker part of your brain will have data and something to start optimizing, so you'll be fine.
If that's you, try something like Lean Startup Machine. I volunteer as a mentor for it, and the team context and short timelines force you to get out there and start bothering random strangers. Who it turns out are not bothered at all, and are happy to talk. Once you get good at it, it's even fun. From there, read a few of the Lean Startup books; they're full of techniques.
The other thing you could mean is that you are literally terrified of dealing with potential customers. That is also not unusual. Programmers skew shy. The main reason I spent most of my teenage years learning to code was that I was awkward and people were scary.
If that bothers you, go see somebody about it. Call up a few therapists and have a meeting with the ones you like. If you find somebody solid, dig into the social anxiety. I know it goes against the hacker ethos to spend 20 hours dealing with a professional when you could spend 200 or 2000 hours trying to solve the problem yourself. But in this case, I think it's worth trying to get quickly to the think you really want to do, which is make and sell some things that people are excited to buy.