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"A long career in business has impressed upon me the unpredictability of success. As an entrepreneur and investor this lesson is particularly sobering.
When I started, I felt that my hard work and a modicum of intelligence would propel me to certain success. Simply put one foot in front of the other. But living in the Silicon Valley casino has changed my view.
Success is, after all, relative. There is much written about the short half-life of the joy experienced after receiving a significant windfall if others have received an even greater sum. It seems we can't even gauge our own success without comparison to others.
And in Silicon Valley, the relative distribution of success appears largely random. That is not to say that many of the successful icons of innovation aren't impressive; it's to say that in comparison to so many of the also-rans they are virtually indistinguishable. And that realization alone is humbling."
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"If the founders of Google, Starbucks, or PayPal had stuck to their original business plans, we'd likely never have heard of them. Instead, they made radical changes to their initial models, became household names, and delivered huge returns for their founders and investors. How did they get from their Plan A to a business model that worked? Why did they succeed when most new ventures crash and burn?
Every aspiring entrepreneur, whether they desire to start a new company or create something new within an existing company, has a Plan A—and virtually all of these individuals believe that their Plan A will work. They can probably even imagine how they'll look on the cover of Fortune or Inc. magazine. Unfortunately, they are usually wrong. But what separates the ultimate successes from the rest is what they do when their first plan fails to catch on. Do they lick their wounds, get back on their feet, and morph their newly found insights into great businesses or do they doggedly stick to their original plan?"
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