From 600+ conversations with the world’s leading thinkers.
If people really want to do something, all they need to do is meet someone who's built something from scratch to show them that it can be done by someone just like them. That's how I started.
Taking that first step is your biggest competitive advantage; most people won't do it.
When you're identifying talent in music or other industries- one of the most important things to identify is which of those individuals is able to marry talent with extraordinary drive.
Visionary leaders that build great companies have some personality attributes they share. They are self-confident enough to be humble. They have a reservoir, a personal drive, passion, belief in their capabilities, and they're willing to admit what they don't do well and to seek those people to join their team from the very beginning.
All of the research we've done exploring space has now allowed small teams- with modest funds- to do what it once took entire governments to do. The design and collaborative power of an individual engineer or technologist is more powerful than it's ever been. The tasks themselves are getting more accessible too.
Taking that first step is your biggest competitive advantage; most people won't do it.
Think of bootstrapping like a multi-stage booster rocket, where each stage propels and prepares you for the next, and the momentum continues building.
Scaling any business is about creating a model, debugging the model, making sure you understand the ingredients that need to be scaled up, and making sure you have a process to scale. All of this needs to be wrapped-up in a financial model that allows the scale to be funded.
I define disruption as being where the incumbent players and incumbents somehow deny what their customers are saying or want differently. A disruptor comes in, sees a problem more clearly, and in some cases has more freedom to attack the problem.
One of the best ways to make money is not to lose it. If you can learn not to lose money, you're making money. When you lose your own money, it hurts, it makes you careful, but you cannot let it take the mojo… the hunger out of you.
People who are building don't want to simply test their ideas in a microcosm, they want to be successful in the real-world, and San Francisco is an international city with real world connections.
You are going to have to get out there and sell yourself. Make a fool of yourself – whatever it takes. Make sure you appear on the front page and not the back pages.