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I thought this was going to be a little deeper, but it's physically the TOOLS (software, skills, knowledge) you need to make a web app... successful or not really has nothing at all to do with this.

And he forgot a really important one.

1) A genuine interest and passion for the service you are building and will be spending thousands of hours working on.

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Required for a successful VC-funded shooting-for-the-moon startup, maybe. Not required for a successful web app. I paid off my student loans and put a downpayment on a house with a "add reviews with star ratings to your online shop" app. I have no passion for ratings widgets. I also now host contact forms for ~1 in 20 Shopify stores; I have no passion for contact widgets. They're just products, that happen to solve problems for some people that value the solution. Solutions to most business problems aren't complicated, thousands-of-hours undertakings.

What Dan said. Passion doesn't have to be for topic area. Passion can be for helping people, for solving problems (whatever they are), for seeing your work in the hands of people who benefit from it, for creating a comfortable & happy life for yourself & your family.

"Passion" is a cheap word. It can mean anything. But it's taken to mean "something that overpowers your sense of judgment and reason" in the startup world. Doesn't have to be so.

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