

Foursquare, Facebook, Founders, and Passion - charlief
http://blog.jayteebee.org/2011/03/foursquare-facebook-founders-and.html

======
thedob
A mistake that first time entrepreneurs often make is to try and identify
their startup by researching gaps in various hot markets, or they try to
identify something that sucks and improve it. These are both good starting
points on their own, however there needs to be an additional qualifier: Is the
founder passionate about the problem and the larger market area they're
entering in? Are they excited to work within this market for the next 5+ years
and are they naturally going to spend all their free time thinking about the
problem?

I know that I've made the mistake multiple times before of stumbling upon a
good idea, getting started on it, only to have it turn into more of a side
project than a business. Passion around the market and problem area is
something that I wouldn't participate in a business without going forward.

~~~
arepb
Market interest fades, passion never dies.

------
gauravgupta
Great post. However, I have a question to ask - say, you're passionate about
painting. Given the number of people in this world who can actually paint well
are so few, your odds of succeeding are pretty good. But what if you're
passionate about say, blogging? Given that everyone in this world and his mom
has a blog today, what are your chances of even getting noticed? Could that be
a reason why some people don't care about what they are passionate about and
instead choose to pick "hot ideas" or "unsolved problems"?

~~~
keeptrying
Well some people are passionate about starting companies and leading people.
So they sometimes dont care about the exact area. And in those cases they want
an idea which can lead to hiring a team either by bootstrapping or through
angel investment - a lot of timees this requires a "hot" idea...

------
nicholasjbs
I think another good example of this is pg with YC. I don't know of anyone
else who has thought as much about starting companies and has such a passion
for it.

~~~
samg
On the other hand, how passionate was pg about viaweb?

