Hard to say. Maybe just paying attention to detail is enough. Or, maybe some understanding of mathematical notation (such as logic and sets, elementary algebra…). You might want to peruse some other of his primers [1], particularly the topology series (of which the one about homology is part).
Homotopy has is origin in topology (but eventually transcended it), so learning about it first in a more “tangible” setting of where it came from might indeed be helpful.
