I’ve heard the saying ‘build boring businesses’ before and was wondering, is it important to build a product that you are passionate and interested in?
Is it better to find a niche thing you are interested in and work on that, or build something for a niche that is somewhat uninteresting to you?
Would love to hear what you guys think of this and if you are passionate about what your business does.
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I prefer to keep business and passion separate.
One of my closest friends started a business that he was passionate about and by the end of it he couldn’t face that passion anymore. He still can’t tend years later.
I heard someone say to build a business around the base things you find easy or are really good at ie. research, writing, selling. It doesn’t matter what the act product, service or business is.
It takes years, some time decades of grind to build a business, in the case of startups it’s even more extreme, it’s possible that for those year you’re earning the same as junior employees and constantly struggling with cashflow and the threat of going out of business.
It’s not so much about passion for your idea, but you need something to offset the downsides, something that keeps you motivated and disciplined through the grind.
When your passionate I find that it’s easier to go above and beyond and make a product that stands out.
Focusing too much on what you’re passionate about can actually narrow your thinking so much that you miss problems that you could solve. Passion can get confused with caring. You have to care about your users and therefore care about their problems.
“There are great startup ideas lying around unexploited right under our noses. One reason we don’t see them is a phenomenon I call schlep blindness. Schlep was originally a Yiddish word but has passed into general use in the US. It means a tedious, unpleasant task.”
Passion helps you to sustain what you’re doing. It doesn’t automatically make you more successful.