Most inspirational stories about entrepreneurs go back to showing their struggle against all the odds, the victory of a passionate individual who overcomes all odds to build the venture of their dream. We could simply think – This is such a great motivation, isn’t it? In our story, too, we see the struggle, we see hardships, I am sure if we can stick passionately, be headstrong at building the venture, we would be successful!
At the other end, walk into a bookstore and ask for books on the lean startup. Or go to the internet and check out lean. You will find that the underlying value portrayed is completely different. Be flexible, learn from the market. Make experiments fail quickly, learn, and improve. Here we see flexibility to be the dominant message.
If we take these two pointers together, it is but logical to ask – should I be passionate, or should I be flexible? What will guarantee success for me?
The answer lies in understanding that both these are perspectives of the entrepreneurial journey. For those who begin questioning the delays in realizing their goals, being passionate is the answer. For those struggling to find the route, staying flexible and listening to the market is the answer.
This does not give the complete picture yet. Passion allows you to invest the energies, handle the uncertain outcomes, and keep the efforts moving. However, the same passion could blind the individual as well as the team into believing blindly what they want to believe. Entrepreneurship is not about building something that only you want to build; it requires you to develop and sell the product, which means that someone outside the team should agree to the value that is being developed and then buy.
If whatever you are building may end up not being valuable to anyone, what is the use of the passion? Listening to the realities as perceived by the market, out there, becomes necessary to develop the venture from the idea.
More importantly, strike a balance in your approach – don’t be over passionate and thus deaf to the realities that the potential market is telling you.
Ask yourself:
Do I feel inspired by my work? Would I love to spend months without a result to get this venture to be sustainable?
Am I listening to market reality? Does it differ from my firmly held beliefs? Should I question my beliefs with the new information I reach?
Is there an alternate way to what I hold so closely and strongly? What is it that I am fighting for – building a business that is valuable or building something the way I see it?
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