Developing the subject of your idea: Finding your passion
Earlier today I was asked to provide a little insight to a group of high school students who are attending a special summer business program at Stanford University. Their curriculum requires them to come up with a start-up concept and build a plan around that idea, in 3-4 weeks. During our discussion, I prodded them about their initial concepts. While most of them already had thoughts around their model, there were a few that were still kicking the tires, mulling over a quagmire of potential opportunities. I posed to them the following question:
“What do you love to do?”
There are many different motivations for becoming an entrepreneur; in fact, it’s likely there are several reasons that drive you towards that lifestyle. For instance you may be seeking more independence, or you believe there is potentially more upside opportunity (financial reward), or someone has pitched you an exciting opportunity, etc. etc., insert your rationale here. One key ingredient, that most successful start-ups will have in common, is the founders have a true burning interest for their product, service or customer; so much so that they are impassioned and driven to follow through with their idea. As an entrepreneur you need this passion.
Coming full circle, this is why I asked the students the original question, simply because at its core, passions’ foundation comes from enjoying the subject of your innovation. Obviously by itself it is not enough to determine success, but without it you will have a tough time convincing potential investors, employees and customers to believe in you or your company. If you are struggling with idea generation, here is a list of questions that may help you brainstorm and triangulate an area of interest that you can be passionate about:
A) Take inventory of all the literature that you read. Which subject (s) do you have the most magazines? Read the most blogs? Read the most newspaper articles?
B) Do you write blogs or provide commentary to blogs or newspapers? On which subject (s)?
C) What are your favorite hobbies? Are you only limited in doing this hobby because of time and/or money? Have you been doing this hobby for a long time? Would other people consider you an expert at this hobby?
D) If you had all the time and the money, but still had to work, what would you do?
E) Who are your heroes? What did these heroes do for work?
F) When you were younger, what did you dream of doing when you were older?
G) Do your friends and family suggest that you are naturally gifted in a specific subject or industry?
This is a good start, now you’ll need to decide another very important part of what I as an investor look for, what big problem can you solve within that subjects industry.
