HOW TO BEGIN ACTION
How does one begin something new? Many people suggest “Thinking Big”. Others talk of “Starting Small”. Let us explore the various models.
START ANYWAY ANYTHING
“There are only two mistakes one can make along the road to truth; not going all the way, and not starting.”
— Buddha (Unverified)
THINK BIG BUT START SMALL
From Joel Gascoigne, CEO and co-founder @ Buffer via his post “The Habits of Successful People: They Start Small”:
I personally love to think big. It’s something I pride myself in — there’s a lot I want to do, and I truly believe I will achieve it. I think it can even be argued that it’s healthy to have ambitious thoughts. Perhaps, depending on the type of startup founder are, you either think big too much or you don’t think big enough.
But it’s those of us who think big too much who need to pay attention to this the most. A certain amount is definitely healthy, but beyond a point it becomes a huge time sink and can actually stop you from reaching your goals.
Gascoigne shares few examples:
Most of us know that Richard Branson started the Virgin brand with a student magazine, but Virgin is just one of many examples which shows that the reality is counterintuitive: actually, the best things we know and love started as tiny things.
I’ve found that if I look into my own life, I find similarly that some of the most important achievements I’ve made started as little projects.
Buffer itself is a great example: it started as a two-page website, and the short blog post describing this process has turned into a talk I’ve given more than 30 times.
Andrew Chen has a great example: decide what blog posts to write based on Tweeting the potential headline.
Further, he quotes Paul Graham:
“Don’t even try to build startups. That’s premature optimization. Just build things that seem interesting. The average undergraduate hacker is more likely to discover good startup ideas that way than by making a conscious effort to work on projects that are supposed to be startups.”
Also see:
- The First Version of Google, Facebook, and YouTube and More (and What They Can Teach Us About Starting Small)
HUMAN ENDEAVORS
Topics to be covered: COMMUNICATION, EMOTIONS, CREATIVITY, INNOVATION, INVENTIONS, ECONOMY (CAPITALISM, COMMUNISM, …), GOVERNANCE, STARTUPS …
STARTUPS
Topics to be covered: Ideation, Execution, Core Team Building (Founders), Product Management, Blue Oceans, Unbundling …..
IDEATION
Idea Maze: Chris Dixon shares in his post:
Good startup ideas are well developed, multi-year plans that contemplate many possible paths according to how the world changes. (read full post here.)
Where and how to find good ideas:
Morgan Housel shares “Go down the list of big innovations, and militaries show up repeatedly.” An excerpt from his post “When The Magic Happens”:
But more importantly they’re home to Really Big Problems That Need to Be Solved Right Now.
Innovation is driven by incentives. And incentives come in many forms.
On one hand there’s, “If I don’t figure this out I might get fired.” That will get your brain in gear.
Then there’s, “If I figure this out I might help people and make a lot of money.” That will produce creative sparks.
Then there’s what militaries have dealt with: “If we don’t figure this out right now we’re all going to die and the world will be taken over by Adolf Hitler.”
That will fuel the most incredible problem-solving and innovation in the shortest period of time that the world has ever seen.
BUILDING CO-FOUNDERS
The term “Skin in the game” (SITG) became famous after Nassim Nicholas Taleb included it in his “Anti-Fragile” body of work (Skin in the Game – book). Aaron Stannard illustrates how SITG can be applied to Founders in his post “You Have to Have Skin in the Game” . An excerpt:
Imagine three founders who set out to create a startup company together:
Founder A – will go broke if the company isn’t able to make enough money to pay his salary within 6 months;
Founder B – has enough in savings to go without compensation for up to 18 months; and
Founder C – has another full-time job but is willing to contribute work on nights and weekends.
Which founder is going to:
Work as fast as possible to deliver revenue-generating results?
Eagerly begin contacting and recruiting potential customers?
Design a system to iterate as fast as possible in order to achieve business sustainability?
THE OMNIZIENT KNOWLEDGE ENGINE 