"Did you do it for the money?"

“So tell me about your journey to go for your dreams and make a million dollars”, said the interviewer to the successful entrepreneur.

“That’s not what I did”, she said.

He looked puzzled for a moment and said, “Well it must be, because that’s what you did, right?”

“No”, she said a bit firmly.  “In fact, starting a business just to make a lot of money hardly ever works.”

“Why not?”, he said, feeling he shouldn’t push his original point for fear of being made wrong by his guest.  He could see by her body language that she was not going to yield on this point.

“A few reasons.  The market will not reward your love for profit. Customers only care about what your product or service will do for them.  You making a lot of money is not their interest. Secondly, you have to love the work and what you are building, because if you don’t, you won’t be good at it.  If you’re in it for the money and don’t love what you’re building, your competitors who do love it will eat your lunch.”

The interviewer was intrigued, but hesitated.  His list of prepared questions was now out the window.  He thought of what to say next.  “Well, why did you start your business then?”

“Because I believe that what I envisioned needed to exist in the world.  I felt called to make it so.”  She sat straight up, looking directly at him, waiting for her next question.