When entrepreneurs are so driven by passion that they’re blind to the realities around them they often find themselves in big trouble. But what we see quite regularly at the early stages of startups is not too much passion but misplaced passion.

Ask yourself this question, “Are you more passionate about the problem you’re solving or your solution?”

It needs to be the former — the problem you’re solving — because there’s a very, very good chance that your solution isn’t the right one. Or at minimum, it’s going to change significantly through many iterations.

Entrepreneurs at the beginning stages of their startups fall too in love with their solution (and their ideas), and that passion drives them down rabbit holes. That passion, which every entrepreneur needs to succeed, has to be directed towards the problem or problems that the startup is intending to fix. If the passion is focused on the problems, it will drive entrepreneurs to make better decisions, focus on customers, and keep an open mind about the solution, and the likelihood for other solutions to emerge.