Carrie Green opens She Means Business by establishing her foundational principle: building an online business around genuine personal interest and passion sustains motivation through inevitable early struggles considerably better than purely opportunistic ventures chosen mainly for perceived market potential.

Why Green prioritizes genuine interest:

• Early-stage businesses inevitably involve significant struggle, slow initial traction, and repeated setbacks — circumstances that quickly deplete motivation for ventures pursued purely for calculated opportunity rather than genuine personal engagement
• Genuine interest provides intrinsic motivation that helps sustain the consistent daily effort required through a business's difficult early period, when external validation and results remain limited
• Green draws on her own experience and those of women she's worked with through her entrepreneurial community, observing that businesses built primarily on calculated market opportunity, absent genuine founder interest, show notably higher abandonment rates during difficult early periods

This foundational principle shapes the book's overall approach: rather than beginning with market analysis to identify supposedly optimal opportunities, Green encourages readers to begin with genuine personal interest and then find viable business applications within that space.