Last night I heard author and venture capitalist Guy Kawasaki on radio discussing world changing ideas, how they are born and why some succeed and others fail. At the root of a great idea, he said, "it has to enable you to do things you've always wanted to do. Or, even better, it should enable you to do things that you did not know you wanted to do."
Kawasaki
explained the origins for many revolutionary ideas, saying that they begin by asking "wouldn't it be neat if?" While this may sound like a simple genesis, he emphasized that following through with the concept is critical to any idea's success. "Many people ask the question ... but not that many try it," he observed. Based on his prolific career,
Kawasaki
said that his opinion has changed about the difficulties of actualizing a winning idea. He summed up this change of heart by noting, "I used to think that the idea is the key and, once you get a good idea, implementation is easy, now that I'm at the end of my career, I think the exact opposite."
One surprising element to profitable ideas, that
Kawasaki
cited, was the importance of having a story behind the concept, whether the tale is true or not. To demonstrate this, he recounted the popular story that Ebay was created so the founder's wife could sell Pez dispensers online. "Not too many people know that that is a story they made up after the fact," he revealed, "it had nothing to do with Pez dispensers." Extending the power of storytelling beyond that, he noted that "storytellers are also very good entrepreneurs," because they can inspire others to envision their "what if" scenario
Walter Derzko
Smart Economy
Toronto
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