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How important is passion?

I am working on a wellness product that I created as a way to scratch my own itch. However, after joining IH and reading a ton of different articles and blogs, I feel like I’m doing everything wrong.

I haven’t validated the idea with a pre-launch landing page, I haven’t been able to figure out what the market niche is, I don’t have a target vertical, I haven’t been able to have someone organically mention that they want something like this (ala the mom test), and to cap it all off it’s a B2C product instead of a B2B.

However, despite what feels like every red flag, I keep coming back to wanting to build this project. I shut down my first startup because my product was competing in a market I had no passion for, but now I’m worried I’m overcompensating.

What are your thoughts, IH? How important is passion about what you’re building?

  1. 1

    I just (stealth) launched my own B2C product that is in the "scratch my own itch" and I am pretty happy about it. That said, I have a very modest ambitions since it is a niche product for a niche group of people.

    You should be passionate about scratching the itch and not the particular way you want to scratches that itch. If you fell in love with your clever implementation rather the problem, you might be going down the wrong road. It is easier to find people like yourself who have the same problem than it is to find people who want your specific solution.

  2. 1

    I am working on a project totally passion driven and I constantly worry that it is clouding my vision :( My hope it that during the harder times, the passion will keep me going and that you can always do this stuff once your MVP is out there.

    MVP --> validate is okay if MVP is small is my view :)

  3. 1

    Hi Colin

    Is something stopping you from testing your idea now? I think you can quickly do a login page test since you have already built some parts of the product. Also, are there some competitors already? If so that means there is a demand and its a matter of differentiating yourself
    If results are not satisfactory you can always think about pivoting it to some other userbase or use case.

    Cheers
    Preeti

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    This comment was deleted 2 years ago.

    1. 1

      That’s fantastic advice, thank you! Your point about protecting an idea you love definitely hit home. Going to work on validation!

    2. 1

      Really well said, especially this part!!

      Now the downside is that that “passion” might cloud your rational business-self. You are “scared” to validate your idea, because you’re worried people won’t need it and then you have to move on from an idea you love, which hurts.

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