Almost as Scary as No Bacon:
Here is a question that I’m posing to the greater entrepreneurial community, inspired by my new favorite blogger, Ramit Sethi of IWillTechYouToBeRich.com. What is the scariest risk to your business idea? I think there are two basic answers to this question. And I am convinced that I know how far you’re going to get in the entrepreneurial game depending on your answer. Each answer reveals what you’re concerned with being the biggest hurdles in birthing your dream into reality some day soon. Evaluating the most important hurdle to tackle next is crucial to executing well on your business idea. Being concerned with the wrong things, things you have no control over, will keep an entrepreneur mired in fear, doing nothing. Fear kills ideas.
The two answers to my question are: “The scariest risk facing my idea is theft,” OR,
“The scariest risk facing my idea is succeeding.”
Theft or Success?
Which are you most worried about? It’s important. Whether you give answer or the other determines how much effort I will invest in nurturing your idea.
In my experience, people who are worried about having their ideas stolen are not serious about starting a business. Sure, there may be some things that you need to keep to yourself, but being unwilling to share anything with people who can help is lethal. Ideas require lots of input from a whole community to thrive. Those of you who doubt this, remember how Sony’s Great Idea, BetaMax? There is no such thing as a Great Idea that will bring instant success. Great ideas are beat out by Good Ideas all the time because of better execution. I run into folks at the Tech Ranch on a regular basis who refuse to share their idea because they are afraid of theft, when all I want to know is what resources they need. Not sharing your idea is equivalent to giving yourself an excuse to do nothing. If someone is too afraid to share their idea, it’s a safe bet they are looking for an excuse to continue doing exactly what they were the day before. Doing nothing is always the easiest option, and it’s the biggest hurdle you have to get over in the beginning.
Moving on.
The other answer to the question, “Will my idea succeed?” makes me very likely to help. It means that you know that Great Ideas are brought into reality via sustained hard work. Simply put, if you have a good idea, I’m willing to bet that 100 other people have the exact same idea right now. I’m also willing to bet that the person who executes the best on the idea is the one who succeeds, not the person who had the idea first. Facebook vs. MySpace is a great example of the early bird losing the worm. MySpace came first, but Facebook executed better, and is currently the second most visited website on the internet behind The Almighty Google.
How to execute on your idea is the crucial part, and those who are worried about success will come to the Tech Ranch in their search for how to answer this question. These are the people who sign up for our Venture Forth Program, our Pioneer Program, and Renting an office at the Ranch. The people worried about their idea being stolen are still going about their day-to-day lives, letting time slip away from them.
Success will change your life. It will bring about all sorts of unforeseen events. The problem is that change around us is terrifying. Change around us requires change within us, which is often the scariest thing in the world other than running out of bacon. Yet, being willing to change ourselves helps us make it over the next hurdle, one step closer to reaching our goals. I guarantee that you’re doing things exactly right to stay exactly where you are. I also guarantee that if you do something “different,” or, “dangerous” it will change your life.
Are you willing to make the change success will demand of you? Speak up, and success answers.
I hope this helps.
