Do only arsonists start match stick companies?

I’ve always wondered about the statement that you should be passionate about what you do. I’d look around at certain every day objects, like a match stick, and think “Who woke up one day and thought to themselves that building a match stick company would be a shit hot idea?”

Today I was reading a 37 Signals Blog post and saw this which nailed it for me:

These days, there’s lots of talk of “following your passion.” But can you really be passionate about credit card processing? “I’m not particularly passionate about payments, but I am passionate about trying to build a good company,” says Johnson.

Bingo! Awfully obvious when you think about it.