When You Want to Change the World, a Lifetime is Short-Term
At the recent Startup Fair organized by the IMT Ghaziabad Entrepreneurship Cell, I moderated a panel on the importance of vision for entrepreneurs.
I said that the usual reasons to become an entrepreneur — money, fame, independence — are all bad reasons. The only good reason to become an entrepreneur is that you don’t know how to do what you can’t not do without becoming one. You see something wrong in the world and you have a vision of how you want to change the world (your ideasliver). It is like an itch you can’t resist scratching, or like a lover you can’t imagine living without. If it’s something you can’t not do, but you can’t get someone to pay you a salary to do it, you become an entrepreneur and do it yourself.
If that’s the reason you became an entrepreneur, it doesn’t matter if your first or second or third startup remains an idea, does a pivot, changes its business model, or falls flat on its face. You’ll keep coming back to it, year after year, like you keep coming back to the memory of your first love, keep looking for her in every new lover. If that’s the reason you became an entrepreneur, it doesn’t matter if you fail a hundred times, because you can’t not try once again.
When you want to change the world, a lifetime is short-term.
I have spent the last three years working on the idea that the future of marketing lies at the intersection of social as in connecting people and social as in benefiting the society. Do have a look at the Social Squared Manifesto and do pass it along.
If you would like to interview me for a story or invite me to speak at a conference, please e-mail me at gauravonomics@gmail.com, call me at +91-9999856940, or connect with me on Twitter.
