When friends say they are "going to start a business", I ask them "Why? Do you know why, do you know what your goal is?". In most cases people can't really exp

When friends say they are "going to start a business", I ask them "Why? Do you know why, do you know what your goal is?". In most cases people can't really explain exactly why, and that's fine and normal. Only after years of being in business did certain things come clear to me. Are you there to make money, to follow your passion, to succeed with something, anything, to own your own time and life? The naive might say "all of the above", but they are not compatible. You may find that you care more about owning your own time than working on stuff you are passionate about. I've seen quite a few people start a business to work on something they are passionate about and then go out of business, when they COULD have stayed in business if they had been prepared to make money doing stuff they didn't love. What is more important in this case, being in business or doing stuff you love?