In start-up land it seems that the "advice de jour" is that you must be "changing the world" or you are likely to bore the heck out of people or catch the wrath of the many bloggers that inhabit start-up land.
This past week the blog World was ripe with posts and comments from Techcrunch50 with a fairly heavy leaning or lamenting that the current round of participants were not "trying to change the world" You are supposed to be changing the world.
This idea of changing the world has long been echoed by venture capitalists, who along with the standard "we invest in teams, profitable business models" often say you must be changing the world. Guy Kawasaki, a well known advisor and speaker has even named his Blog - How to Change the World.
So can start-ups really change the World and what is the World?
And finally, always remember, as a start-up your World changing business may not be big enough to intrigue a venture capitalist or escape the wrath or boredom of the esteemed judges, advisers and angel investors that like to hang around the start-up world and that is fine.
Just make sure that you understand the World that you are in and your place in it and act accordingly.
Ed Loessi
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This past week the blog World was ripe with posts and comments from Techcrunch50 with a fairly heavy leaning or lamenting that the current round of participants were not "trying to change the world" You are supposed to be changing the world.
This idea of changing the world has long been echoed by venture capitalists, who along with the standard "we invest in teams, profitable business models" often say you must be changing the world. Guy Kawasaki, a well known advisor and speaker has even named his Blog - How to Change the World.
So can start-ups really change the World and what is the World?
- If you are a desk jockey working for the man, then your world is that constrained space you are dying to get out of so you might start that first business to escape one World and create a new World for you and your family, which for a lot of people is a pretty important World
- If your World is a particular passion like social service than you might create a business that makes a huge difference to those that you are passionate towards. Take for example Kiva, these founders had a passion for helping people rise from poverty and they significantly advanced the process for micro-lending, which has made a huge difference in the World of those people. Kiva has lent millions of dollars, which is really only a fraction of the billions that have gone into fighting poverty globally, but does that mean they have not met the game changing threshold because they are not the number 1 or 2 lender on the Planet fighting poverty?, of course not.
- If your World is the Planet Earth than you might create Facebook but of even with 300 million users it's not really the whole World it's just a subsection of the 6 billion people on this planet who happen to socialize in a certain way, so is it really changing the World?, well given that it is the number one social network for people who socialize that way, then I guess so at least for them.
- Don't leave that desk jockey job in an IT services company and start another IT services company that is cheaper or more responsive because you have less overhead and you are excited to work for yourself on the weekends
- Don't copy Kiva's micro-lending model and make a few improvements to the Web interface
- Don't just make Facebook applications so that you can gain access to their vast user base
And finally, always remember, as a start-up your World changing business may not be big enough to intrigue a venture capitalist or escape the wrath or boredom of the esteemed judges, advisers and angel investors that like to hang around the start-up world and that is fine.
Just make sure that you understand the World that you are in and your place in it and act accordingly.
Ed Loessi
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