The best startups generally come from somebody needing to scratch an itch.

Arrington’s line distills a common Silicon Valley observation: many durable startups begin as “painkillers,” not “vitamins.” When a founder is personally affected by a problem—an “itch” they feel in daily life—they are more likely to understand the user’s needs, iterate quickly, and persist through setbacks because the motivation is intrinsic rather than purely opportunistic. The quote also implies a bias toward authenticity and proximity to the customer: solutions built from lived frustration tend to be more concrete, testable, and differentiated than ideas invented to chase trends. In startup terms, it’s an argument for founder–problem fit and for building from real demand rather than speculative hype.