It *is* how hard you work.

innonate:

“There is only one factor that matters. Results. That’s the difference between being an entrepreneur vs. being a rank-and-file employee is being rewarded for results (ownership) vs. being rewarded for punching the clock alone (a paycheck). Obsessive/addictive work habits can lead to results, but they don’t guarantee them - and under certain conditions, they inhibit them.”

— Greg Battle, Leftover Takeout

So that was my good friend Greg Battle’s response to my sketch called “Am I Fit for Startups?” where I emphasized passion and teamwork as trademark qualities of people I value in a startup environment.

Earlier parts of Greg’s rebuttle incorrectly accused me of valuing time, because I both mentioned “3am” and starting to dream “1 hour” before waking up. There he focused on the wrong thing, because both were actually indications of something much more important in startups: passion.

(I was up ‘till 3am because I was passionate about the work, and I dream about the work because the passion has entered the subconscious.)

Passion is a key ingredient of entrepreneurial success, but what is it?

Passion is intensity. Passion is the need to leave no stone left unturned. Passion is knowing your strengths and leveraging them. Perhaps most importantly:

Passion activates the hypersensitivity to see market nuances, and the energy to act.

In fact, the manifestation of this passion — entrepreneurial mania — is something I think is both healthy and necessary for success; and, in my anecdotal research, I don’t believe you can succeed without it.

Taking a quick look at the success stories of our time, we can create a long list of highly successful entrepreneurs who were passionate and therefore manic:

Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Larry & Sergy, Richard Branson, the list goes on…

But can anyone name a successful entreprneuer who wasn’t passionate and manic? While the concept of “entreprneurial mania” makes sense, when you stop and think about it — and stop defending the non-manic — an example of successful “entrepreneurial dispassion” doesn’t come easily.

So, sorry Greg, and other nay-sayers, I won’t apologize. My standards stand: Must Have Passion. And yes, that means you must be driven to stay up past your bedtime and you must dream about it in those wee hours of the morning.

Passion is important, yes. But you cannot simply let that passion drive you to build product. You have to care about your users. Blip.tv succeeds not just despite it’s warts, it succeeds in many cases because of them. We put it all out there, warts and all, and that allows our users the flexibility to build the product they need from our toolset. If we were up ‘til 3am every night working on product we’d have blinders on coming in the next morning. It’s important that you’re as passionate about your users as you are about your product, and anyone running on 3 hours of sleep isn’t going to have to energy to give their users the attention they deserve. Yes, put in the extra hours, but don’t let it suck you into a being a product zombie.