"When we started we didn't know how to do any Web programming whatsoever," Morey said. "We didn't even know how to set up a Web server or a database. But we both sort of fell in love with all the new things we were learning."
Wow! That pretty much sums it up, AFAIC.
Start with a problem. Find a way to solve that problem, no matter what it takes. Have fun.
We were all doing physics before Octopart so we were pretty comfortable in a unix environment. I took a class in C as a sophomore in college and Sam took the same class in Java. When we decided we were going to start a company I had never heard of MySQL and when we launched we didn't know how to write a single line of javascript. Our core search engine is written in C++ so we've had to learn quite a bit more than traditional web programming as well.
Wow! That pretty much sums it up, AFAIC.
Start with a problem. Find a way to solve that problem, no matter what it takes. Have fun.
What more could you ask for?