Entrepreneurs need passion. It's the fuel in their drive to success. It's the thickening in their skin when others poke holes in their ideas. It's the steel in their spine when they tough it out through yet another reversal. It's also the magic that builds teams, converts customers and makes believers out of investors.
Passion is what makes the entrepreneur think about his venture pretty much all the time (even the dreams are affected). It makes the whole experience exciting and fulfulling - hate to say it, but it can get pretty darn close to being the love of your life, for a while anyway. More than one person has commented on how my eyes light up when I talk about my idea, and its not surprising as I've seen it with others. Enterpreneurs need the passion for without it they can easily lose heart, especially in the early stages when they're just starting out.
The first thing you set out to do as an entrepreneur is to validate your idea. Which, more often than not, can be a withering experience. You start googling, and at first you're thrilled that while there are a few others out there, they're not close to what you're planning. It's all good as you're getting market validation without established competition. And then you realize that your search was a little limited, you were not using the right terms and wow, there are others who're almost exactly where you want to be. You see the 800 lb. gorillas and rhinos and other large, impressive animals of the territorial variety looming out there. At this point, if you don't have passion bolstering you, you're going to back down and start perusing want ads. But, if you're passionate about your dream, you won't give up that easily - you'll be thinking of how you could be better, different, aim for niche markets, whatever.
But passion without pragmatism can trip you up in a major way. Consider the same scenario as above. When faced with potential competion, the pragmatic entrepreneur will try to figure out how he can beat the competition. But if he was driven only by passion he could very well just 'stick to the dream' and not pay attention to the 'make it work' part, because the second may need some adjustments to the vision and for some that's right up there with infidelity.
You have to be alert to the founder's fog for it can dim the real landscape around you. I know when I go to 'get feedback' from a prospective customer, it is instinctive to defend the idea instead of being open to all possible criticism and skepticism. But it is imperative that I listen to all of it as that is how I'd know what the customer really wants (or most emphatically does not want) - and I should listen without trying to influence his thoughts, not at that stage anyway. That is the smart, practical thing to do. And then, instead of letting you fold under the weight of the problems, the passion and commitment to the vision kicks in and starts the creative thinking process. You have to know when to bring passion to the fore and let pragmatism take a break and vice versa, and make sure you hold on to both and don't let either disappear altogether.
Successful entrepreneur - passionate pragmatist.
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