everybody should create a start-up
by phil on Friday Jan 30, 2009 3:46 PM
call to action, mainfeed, optimism
Reading Julia Cameron's The Right to Write
One of the interesting angles is that she talks about how everybody is a writer. Everybody thinks, has ideas, and wants to express their ideas.
Which has got me thinking that if you take an inventory of skills in a career-finding test, there will be a subset of these skills that belong in the "everybody is" category.
I can think of a couple off the top of my head.
"everybody is a singer"
Everybody wants to sing, and enjoys singing (barring physical handicap). If they're bad, they like to sing in the shower. I think that's largely the appeal of American Idol. (And now in the US, karaoke).
Here's another one.
"everybody is an entrepreneur"
I believe that everybody has had a moment like, "somebody should fix this" or "somebody should offer this." I think I'd feel comfortable going on a crusade to have everybody, and I mean everybody, try creating a start-up. I feel like that would be a universal good.
A cynic could say, "well, not everybody has good ideas, the world doesn't need more half-baked ideas." I think that would be B.S. because we don't know which ideas are half-baked and which ideas are not until they're attempted. I've had a lot of start-ups ask me to do things which looked ridiculous on paper, but once fully expressed became a "why didn't I think of this."
A lot of good companies started in downturns. GE, Disney, HP, Hyatt, Microsoft, FedEx, MTV, CNN.
