Every great company starts with a single idea. Every book, software, invention, innovation, and enterprise started with the founders asking questions such as what if? How can we be of service to the marketplace? As ancient Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu once said “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step”. In the same vein, the journey of building a successful business begins with a single idea, executed relentlessly with a great team.
A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. - Lao Tzu
In 1976, Steve Jobs implored his friend Steve Wozniak to sell his printed circuit board. Wozniak had designed the Apple 1 to give away the PCB schematics for free. Jobs asked Wozniak: “Why don’t we build and sell the PCBs to them (computer hobbyist at the Homebrew Computer Club)? That question led them both to start the Apple Computer company in 1976 with a working capital of $1,300. Apple Inc. today is the most valuable company in the world with a market capitalization of $2.7 trillion. Apple became the first publicly traded U.S. company to be valued at over $1 trillion in August 2018, $2 trillion in August 202, and recently $3 trillion in January 2022.
It all started with a simple question: How could they solve a problem for a particular market segment (Sell PCBs for computer enthusiasts). Apple have since disrupted the personal computing industry (MacBook, iMac), music industry (iPod & iTunes), mobile phones (iPhone), mobile computing (iPad), Wearable (iWatch), Retail (Apple Store). The difference between the two Steve’s and others that did not make it was their dedication, execution and innovative culture. The journey of building a multinational business corporation starts with a single idea, question, insight, epiphany and the will to execute on the idea.
The Entrepreneur
An Entrepreneur is an individual who creates a new business, bearing most of the risks and enjoying most of the rewards. The process of setting up a business is known as entrepreneurship. The entrepreneur is commonly seen as an innovator, a source of new ideas, goods, services, and business/or procedures. 1
An Entrepreneur create something new, something different; they change or transmute values. French Economist J.B.Say once observed “The Entrepreneur shifts economic resources out of an area of lower and into an area of higher productivity and greater yield.” (Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Peter Drucker).
The entrepreneur always searches for change, responds to it, and exploits it as an opportunity. - Peter Drucker
The Entrepreneur is someone who identifies a problem to solve, creates a company (Enterprise) to solve that problem and in the process gets rewarded with profit as a result of the value that he has added to the marketplace. The Entrepreneurial journey is tough, risky and somewhat lonely but with determination, persistence and grit, the journey is worth the while. As American Internet Entrepreneur and co-founder of Linkedin, Reid Hoffman often said “Starting a company is like jumping off a cliff and assembling a plane on the way down.”
You don’t have to be great to start but you have to start to be great.
In a 1994 Santa Clara Valley Historical Association interview, co-founder and late CEO of Apple Inc., Steve Jobs observed:
“When you grow up you tend to get told that the world is the way it is and your life is just to live your life inside the world-try not to bash into the walls too much, try to have a nice family life, have fun, save a little money. But life-that’s a very limited life. Life can be much broader once you discover one simple fact. And that is everything around you that you call life was made up by people that were no smarter than you. And you can change it-you can influence it, you can build your own things that other people can use.”
Life can be much broader once you discover one simple fact. And that is everything around you that you call life was made up by people that were no smarter than you.
Ideas are all around us, we just need to train our mind to be on the look out for them. All great companies started with a simple great idea, a visionary founder(s) and a great team. The key to becoming a successful entrepreneur is executing your idea relentlessly, failing forward, staying persistent and seeing the end in mind.
Ideas are cheap. Ideas are easy. Ideas are common. Everybody has ideas. Ideas are highly overvalued. Execution is all that matters. - Casey Neistat
