I make a mean soup - I mean really good. And I’d never open a soup restaurant. I love to run, but don’t have an online course for runners. I hate the way my feet smell at the end of the day, but have no interest in starting Stinkyfeet.com.
There are plenty of reasons not to start a company. One major one is if that company far away from the “Entrepreneur Sweet Spot.”
The Entrepreneur Sweet Spot
Principle: Do what you love, unless nobody pays you to.
An entrepreneur who believes deeply in his mission may also be the depressed founder if nobody else does. Passion does not always convert to sales.
The person making $12k/mo toggling back and forth between excel sheets until her eyes melt is solving a problem and getting paid, but her soul is leaking from her body.
And the person getting paid to follow his passion, but who isn’t solving a problem… is likely on the other side of a very unsustainable charity.
Tactics
Make a list of your interests - the stuff you could do or talk about for hours without stopping. Cooking, people watching, biking, raising children without snacks, writing…
Go identify a major problem or two within each of those categories that many people would have. Use reddit and reviews of current solutions to identify those problems.
Ask yourself and others who fit the demo: would someone pay (enough) to have this problem solved?
Bonus: validate that hypothesis by creating the scrappiest MVP, and running $250 of meta ads to see if you can get a sale/subscriber/download.
Habits
A good piece of advice I heard recently: “Don’t follow your passion, follow passion.”
If you think you have just one passion, you’ve been brainwashed. Likely by middle-aged women holding rocks on Instagram.
You feel passion when you’re doing things well or learning something interesting.
Seek out moments where you’re feeling passionate, and pursue them with curiosity over a period of time, (even in work you might be less than pumped about). You might be surprised to discover a little sliver of gold you didn’t know was there.
Right in the sweet spot.
God speed,
Mike
Today’s inspiration: Daniel Priestly on Diary of a CEO