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Misplaced Passion is Common for Early Stage Entrepreneurs

When entrepreneurs are so driven by passion that they’re blind to the realities around them they often find themselves in big trouble. But what we see quite regularly at the early stages of startups is not too much passion but misplaced passion.

Ask yourself this question, “Are you more passionate about the problem you’re solving or your solution?”

It needs to be the former — the problem you’re solving — because there’s a very, very good chance that your solution isn’t the right one. Or at minimum, it’s going to change significantly through many iterations.

Entrepreneurs at the beginning stages of their startups fall too in love with their solution (and their ideas), and that passion drives them down rabbit holes. That passion, which every entrepreneur needs to succeed, has to be directed towards the problem or problems that the startup is intending to fix. If the passion is focused on the problems, it will drive entrepreneurs to make better decisions, focus on customers, and keep an open mind about the solution, and the likelihood for other solutions to emerge.

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June 11, 2010 Posted in Startups by

  • http://throughput.us/ consultski

    Most excellent! Right on the money. It is so easy to get stuck on “here is what I do” (among the reasons: that is exactly what people ask you every day).

    You must break that habit.

    Change hats with the problem! Ask things like, “In what ways could I be solved?”

  • http://www.faydalihayat.com/ Faydalihayat

    good explanation thank uu

  • http://musicballads.wordpress.com chris

    well, how can one be sure than – especially on the beginning – that you passion is misplaced.
    There is so many examples of people who were struggling for Years! until they succeeded .. should they gave up long time ago because of rabbit holes they were finding themselves many times during the process? :)
    but this attitude: 'open mind about the solution' is definitely worth having!

  • http://www.instigatorblog.com Benjamin Yoskovitz

    Chris – In this case I was specifically speaking about early stage entrepreneurs — folks that are so passionate about their idea that they're blinded to constructive feedback, the need to iterate and pivot, etc. Certainly every business and entrepreneur suffers by falling into rabbit holes, and struggles mightily to succeed. Passion is needed to get through that; but you can't run on passion alone.

  • http://www.zampanofilms.com Zampano Entertainment

    Thanks! 20:56

  • http://www.workathomemomcenter.com Laura

    I'm definitely more passionate about the problem. My personal pet peeve is hearing people spread the myth that all work from home opportunities are a scam. All one has to do is spend an hour or so on the web to realize that there are an overwhelming amount of slimy advertisements for work at home jobs for moms on the web, BUT this does not mean that legitimate opportunities do not exist. I won't get on my soapbox here, but suffice to say that I really am driven to enlighten people on this topic. I'm just getting started and I know it's an uphill battle, but it's one that gets me up at 5a and keeps me going all day long.

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  • http://500hats.typepad.com/ Dave McClure
  • lary

    Passion should be there but it shouldn't be so much or so less that you fail to see what exactly the problem is and how to solve it. Passion should be like that, that one can focus on the problems and can mange their work properly.

    social media management

  • http://www.instigatorblog.com Benjamin Yoskovitz

    Thanks Dave. You certainly present the information in a more colorful way than I do! What I'm seeing quite often these days is early stage entrepreneurs that are so in love with their ideas that they seem unwilling to bend or consider new input. That's not a good sign to me…

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    Great site. A lot of useful information here. I’m sending it to some friends!

  • http://www.dusesmoda.com Fusun

    Why do you shameless people have to add your spam comments on an article that has nothing to do with this article other than trying to get people to go to your website??? Get a life and promote it the legit way like all other hard working marketers do. GEEZ!

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About Ben Yoskovitz
I recently joined GoInstant as VP Product. GoInstant changes how we use the web, making it shareable like never before.

I'm also a Founding Partner at Year One Labs, an early stage accelerator in Montreal. Previously I founded Standout Jobs (and sold it). I'm a hands-on startup guy, helping companies grow successfully from the idea forward. You can reach me at byosko at gmail dot com.

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