Successful Startup (Part 6)

Talking about startups, in the entrepreneurship series I covered five aspects so far:

1. The mindset of the entrepreneur
2. The importance of the team
3. The risks and how to mitigate them
4. The focus on quality
5. Research / development and support as an alternative to marketing and sales

Today I want to talk about a vision. Looking at the list above, it should have probably been before the number 1. Because very often even before the entrepreneur makes the "go" decision, there is a vision she / he has.

The vision has to be radical. Stretching far into the future. The further it reaches, the more time you have to make the "go" decision, to assemble the right team, to address the risks, to have time to focus on quality and build proper support structures.

A far reaching vision can be identified when you tell it to people and they keep on saying "there is no market for this". I love that moment. Because this means there is not much competition. Yet. And we do not have to rush. In a rush quality always suffers. The comfort of building when you do not feel the heat of the competition is priceless.

Your vision can be wrong. Of course. But wrong vision is not worse than a poor product. With no vision you will always be catching up in a hurry, without time to polish your product. And there is always a chance your vision is right

Be radical with your vision. Try to imagine the world not today. And not tomorrow. But way ahead. Do not attempt to solve today's problems. Try to imagine what kind of problems or needs will people have the day after tomorrow. Live in the future, and build what is missing with what is abundant.

Back in 1996 George Gilder wrote:

To grasp the new era, you must imagine that bandwidth will be free and watts scarce. If the law of thrift in the current paradigm is waste watts and transistors, the law of thrift in the new paradigm will be waste bandwidth and save watts. In the new era, engineers will exploit the abundance of bandwidth and push the frontiers of low-power technology to compensate for the limitations of computer and network architectures.
If bandwidth is free, you get a completely different computer architecture and information economy. Transcending all previous concepts of centralization and decentralization, one global machine will distribute processing to the optimal point and access everything. Feeding on low power and high bandwidth, the most common computer of the new era will be a digital cellular phone with an IP address.

Sounds familiar? That was 16 years ago! Now go and try to think how the world will look like in 2020 (that is only 8 years from now). It ain't easy. But keep trying. Solving problems takes time. So do not attempt to solve today's problems. Imagine the problems of tomorrow. They are your opportunities, if you identify them correctly. Build products that solve tomorrow's problems. This is my 6th ingredient for a successful startup.