

Ask HN:  How many entrepreneurs out there are really passionate? - fapi1974

I have a confession to make:  I've worked on several ideas, and I'm not completely insanely passionate about them.  But I love being an entrepreneur!  I work on ideas because I think they are good ideas and it is exciting to try and make my vision a reality.  I mean, I don't care about enterprise software or online video &#60;i&#62;that&#60;/i&#62; much - but is that really so bad?  Isn't it enough to like working for yourself in a great group and strive for success, and have your passions not be your job?  I also find it strange how many entrepreneurs &#60;i&#62;happen&#60;/i&#62; to be passionate about, say, group commerce these days.  Really?
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dasht
In my experience, business use of the word "passion" is nearly always code for
something better said in other ways (if one is to be plain spoken). Some
examples:

1) Entrepreneur Joe might have a good idea for a business but "Joe lacks
passion" is code for an intuitive hunch that Joe is going to flake out and get
distracted.

2) Alice might need something (investment, a business deal, etc.) and "Alice
is passionate about this" is code for "Alice is completely screwed without
this deal. She is highly motivated to perform. We've got her by the balls, so
to speak."

3) Martin might have a great idea and the drive to do the technical work, but
"Martin lacks passion" is code for "Martin can't dazzle people into
uncritically buying from him." (This is part of the "passion is contagious" bs
meme.)

4) Kate might have a start-up idea that looks great on paper, but it would
require her to really drive a few initial employees very hard. "Kate lacks
passion" is code for the hunch that Kate is not sufficiently sociopathic to
abuse employees into a submission that is against their own best interests.

People in tech business circles use the word "passion" with about as much care
as they use the word "fantastic". As a first approximation, it means "uh... I
thought I was supposed to be making some noise or other just now and that word
is what came out of my mouth".

~~~
fapi1974
The context in which I find the ambiguity most apparent is when it's related
to someone's motivation for being involved in a project. While it's clear that
some people are motivated by the subject of their work - I think they are few
and lucky.

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revorad
Hugh MacLeod's legendary "How To Be Creative" article had a great point which
is meant mainly for artists, but I think applies to entrepreneurs as well, at
least when you talk about passion.

 _Don’t worry about finding inspiration. It comes eventually._

See no.24 -
[http://changethis.com/manifesto/6.HowToBeCreative/pdf/6.HowT...](http://changethis.com/manifesto/6.HowToBeCreative/pdf/6.HowToBeCreative.pdf)

Sorry the blog post seems to have disappeared, all I could find was the PDF.

It is so good, I must quote all of it:

 _Don’t worry about finding inspiration. It comes eventually.

Inspiration precedes the desire to create, not the other way around.

One of the reasons I got into drawing cartoons on the back of business cards
was I could carry them around with me. Living downtown, you spend a lot of
time walking around the place. I wanted an art form that was perfect for that.

So if I was walking down the street and I suddenly got hit with the itch to
draw something, I could just nip over to the nearest park bench or coffee
shop, pull out a blank card from my bag and get busy doing my thing. Seamless.
Effortless. No fuss. I like it.

Before, when I was doing larger works, every time I got an idea while walking
down the street Iʼd have to quit what I was doing and schlep back to my studio
while the inspiration was still buzzing around in my head. Nine times out of
ten the inspired moment would have passed by the time I got back, rendering
the whole exercise futile. Sure, Iʼd get drawing anyway, but it always seemed
I was drawing a memory, not something happening at that very moment.

If youʼre arranging your life in such a way that you need to make a lot of
fuss between feeling the itch and getting to work, youʼre putting the cart
before the horse. Youʼre probably creating a lot of counterproductive “Me, The
Artist, I must create, I must leave something to posterity” melodrama. Not
interesting for you or for anyone else.

You have to find a way of working that makes it dead easy to take full
advantage of your inspired moments. They never hit at a convenient time, nor
do they last long.

Conversely, neither should you fret too much about “writerʼs block,” “artistʼs
block,” or whatever. If youʼre looking at a blank piece of paper and nothing
comes to you, then go do something else. Writerʼs block is just a symptom of
feeling like you have nothing to say, combined with the rather weird idea that
you SHOULD feel the need to say something.

Why? If you have something to say, then say it. If not, enjoy the silence
while it lasts. The noise will return soon enough. In the meantime, youʼre
better off going out into the big, wide world, having some adventures, and
refilling your well. Trying to create when you donʼt feel like it is like
making conversation for the sake of making conversation. Itʼs not really
connecting, itʼs just droning on like an old, drunken barfly._

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staunch
Zuckerberg wasn't particularly passionate about Facebook in the early days.
Now he seems to be on a possibly life-long mission.

There's no substitute for discipline and hard work, not even passion (though
it may make it less painful).

~~~
jwegan
Just curious what led you to believe he wasn't passionate about Facebook? He
was involved a couple other social networking type stuff like ConnectU and his
HotOrNot clone. To me, it seems he was at least interested in exploring the
domain space.

~~~
staunch
Based on what I read in The Facebook Effect mostly. I think he's even said as
much.

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garply
I'm passionate about making money.

That said, once you identify a sector in which to make money, you need to
master it. With mastery almost alway comes at least an appreciation or
affection for a subject.

~~~
hasenj
Really? That's strikes me in a weird way.

To me, (at least subconsciously) passion means a drive to do something out of
love, regardless of whether or not you can make money out of it.

Being "passionate about making money" almost doesn't make any sense.

Better said as "I'm very driven to make money".

~~~
garply
Making money is a game, like baseball. If people can be passionate about the
latter, why can't I be passionate about the former?

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chintan
I hear you brother. I do ask myself this sometimes.

I came to conclusion that I'm passionate about the "game"! Not money, not the
product but figuring out the game of:

1\. how my domain/system works

2\. where is money

3\. who are players, their motivations

4\. how do customers/users function

trying out different hypothesis (gaming) for each of the above and seeing data
and learning the GAME!

Once you KNOW THE GAME, you can use it anywhere else.

PS: Wall St 2 reference: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xzPFCKDexok>

~~~
jakerocheleau
this is awesome.

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pclark
Here is a fundamental thing I've learnt about startups that is hugely
important and massively over looked:

You need to be passionate about building a company, not an idea.

Because you will change the idea, and if your passion isn't in running a
company you're dead. The groupon guy doesn't care about group buying, he cares
about building a company with x culture etc.

~~~
fapi1974
I was making that argument, somewhat unsuccessfully, with a VC friend last
night. His counter was "I have to see that THIS idea is the one, among all the
others you could be pursuing..."

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benatkin
It's kind of like picking a college major. Where college students invest their
money and long amounts of time in a particular major, entrepreneurs
(wantrepreneurs?) invest their minds in particular markets. At some point it
becomes part of their identity.

I think it's better to decide on a particular market with some definitive
action like starting a company or large side project, and if it fizzles out,
avoid identifying with it. Being identified with a market that you don't know
about doesn't impress genuine entrepreneurs.

Curiosity is different. It's good to be curious. Surprisingly, trying to be
curious has worked for me. So has dealing with some of the many things that
can get in the way of natural curiosity.

------
ThomPete
The problem is not passion but vision. If you don't have a vision about where
you want to take something then you will end up burning lots off energy but
not really going anywhere.

The rocket needs a destination to aim for even if it never get's there
completely.

~~~
jchrisa
Exactly - without vision there is no reason to be passionate. I spend all my
free time (and my work time) on CouchDB b/c I see a vision of a programming
model which is much better than today's web, and I want to make it reality. In
this sense, passion may mean that I'm unstoppable, because I'll keep doing it
no matter what. But really, it's the power of the vision that drives me.

~~~
puredemo
What is your vision?

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bryanp
Find something about your work that you're passionate about, rather than the
work itself (you could call it being indirectly passionate). For me, I'm
passionate about creating useful things. So long as I'm creating useful things
at work I'm passionate about it.

------
JonathanFields
To me, passion in the context of starting and building a business is about a
deep commitment to serve the a source of pain or create a source of delight
for a market that you feel a strong connection to.

If what's driving you is an attachment to a particular solution, then if the
solution doesn't work, your commitment to the entire endeavor evaporates.

But, if your attachment is to a market, you stay motivated and have a much
easier time pivoting as needed and surviving until you find the model and
solution that work.

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spreiti
I currently work on a startup together with my friend. We don't do this
because we are passionate about starting a company or the problem we solve is
exciting. We do it for the money. Why work for some company if you can make
much more money selling you services directly? That's what got us started. Not
passion.

Now I don't think it's wrong to be passionate but it's definitely a key factor
whether your business is successful or not. It all comes down to hard work,
execution and a little bit of luck.

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joelrunyon
I forget where, but i heard someone say somewhere that the best entrepreneurs
are ones that solve problems, not the ones that are just trying to make money.
Maybe it's just me, but it's much easier to be passionate about a problem
because I'm not satisfied until it's fixed. It's a finite conclusion that you
can finally reach.

Might try asking yourself - what's one problem that makes you
upset/annoyed/frustrated? What can you do to fix it?

------
aditya
It's tough to know what you're really passionate about, though. One way to
think about it, that I've found useful, is to say that you're passionate about
something if you love coming in to work and doing things, and time goes by so
fast that you have no idea how it's late at night already. If you can pull
that off consistently, then you're somewhat on the right track.

~~~
fapi1974
I get that - the "flow" idea. But I can get "flow" in a pretty mundane task -
filing in the office, grinding in a game, etc. And I wouldn't describe myself
as passionate about any of those things...

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ojbyrne
I think you need other people (either a co-founder or ideally, users) to be
passionate about an idea in order to stoke your own passion. It's hard to stay
passionate about something for very long alone.

------
oberglof
I'm truly passionate about making something people actually want to use on a
daily basis. Getting the first users to really love the product is what I care
about. Money is hopefully a biproduct.

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tzm
Be passionate about creating value.

~~~
logich
translated: love making money.

~~~
tzm
"Value" is qualitative. "Money" is quantitative.

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puredemo
_raises hand_

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ilkhd2
Most deeply passionate are people in manic phase of bipolar disorder (2.6% of
USA population).

