I was recently asked by someone why I do (or carry on doing) what I do. It’s such a simple question yet it startled me. It’s easy enough to jump in to a knee-jerk textbook answer. But its really hard to articulate why it really is that you do what you do (short of things like necessity, habit, or lack of choice. The ‘why not’ is not a valid answer.continue reading »

Possibly the worst piece of advice that keeps going round is that  ‘ideas are cheap, its all about execution’. It’s not.

This is not to say that execution isn’t important. But great execution on a mediocre or bad idea will get you nowhere. A great idea that’s radically different will give you room for error and even if you don’t execute perfectly – which you won’t anyway – the business will succeed.

Quite a few entrepreneurs come to me to tell me their idea and get feedback. I always end up saying the same thing. Which is first to be brutally honest with themselves. 99% are not.  They are wrapped up in their own chant. They drink their own coolaid.

Entrepreneurs in general have a knack for making their idea sound great. They can sugarcoat your own shit and sell it back to you without you realizing. They exude passion and get trapped in their own reality distortion field.  And suddenly a crappy product that adds no value to the customer looks like ecstasy. And thats the problem. Most entrepreneurs when starting are not sober (metaphorically speaking). They’re on ecstasy.

So what makes a great idea?continue reading »