I should probably come clean first. In my “other life” I am a co-founder of a start-up not yet covered in this blog (no big secret other then telling what we exactly do.. www.triplay.com). We are not even in Beta yet (an inch away) but are well into development and have worked a lot of sweat and tears to be where we are. Building a product from scratch is very difficult. Despite frequent popular claims, you must have a really good core idea. You then need to define the problem or situation your are addressing, how your product / service provides significant value etc. but then you already know that. One very important ingredient, however, gets overlooked too often - Passion. Simple, natural, basic passion. How and where does passion squeeze it self into the essence of the product? Everything seems to revolve around the technicalities these modern times. All so rational - define the market, your competitors, the features, the road map. I never, not once, not in a university classroom, text book or a VC meeting heard someone say or ask something about passion. (more…)