The way Willy sees an ideal life is you must be well known and have an average wage income. Basically being somebody in the world. Not someone who sits around being lazy and not even being capable to handle a job. Willy was a salesman who traveled all over the U.S. to sell whatever product he had to sell. Biff and Happy however didn’t even have a job at the time.
Biff and Happy were failures in Willy’s eyes due to the fact that they were unemployed and lived with their parents. They had ideas but Willy didn’t like them because he knew that they wouldn’t be ideas worth working to fulfill. Then Biff and Happy had the idea to build an athletic shop together.