I've met a couple of founders who started by searching various "segments" of the "on demand" economy and looking for a niche with little existing (highly visible) competing startups. Seriously these folks had zero experience in the industry and the solution they crafted was certainly not based on some personal experience. In one case they have been pretty successful :)

To be fair, I do feel like there is a certain population disingenuous founders who weave a backstory around the genesis of their startup...but the population, by my estimation is small.