What Does It Take To Be A Founder?

IF you want to be a founder and can’t get an idea for a company, you should probably work on getting good at idea generation first.

How do you do that?

It’s important to be in the right kind of environment, and around the right kind of people. You want to be around people who have a good feel for the future, will entertain improbable plans, are optimistic, are smart in a creative way, and have a very high idea flux. These sorts of people tend to think without the constraints most people have, not have a lot of filters, and not care too much what other people think. 

The best ideas are fragile; most people don’t even start talking about them at all because they sound silly. Perhaps most of all, you want to be around people who don’t make you feel stupid for mentioning a bad idea, and who certainly never feel stupid for doing so themselves.

Stay away from people who are world-weary and belittle your ambitions. Unfortunately, this is most of the world. But they hold on to the past, and you want to live in the future.

You want to be able to project yourself 20 years into the future, and then think backwards from there. Trust yourself—20 years is a long time; it’s ok if your ideas about it seem pretty radical. 

When you can say “I am sure this is going to happen, I’m just not sure if we’ll be the ones to do it”, that’s a good sign. 

A good question to ask yourself early in the process of thinking about an idea is “could this be huge if it worked?” 

Be willing to make a very long-term commitment to what you’re doing.  Most people aren’t, which is part of the reason they pick “easy” startups.  In a world of compounding advantages where most people are operating on a 3 year timeframe and you’re operating on a 10 year timeframe, you’ll have a very large edge.

I am scrappy and formidable at the same time, mission-oriented, obsessed with my company, relentless, and determined; extremely smart (necessary but certainly not sufficient); decisive, fast-moving, and willful; courageous, high-conviction, and willing to be misunderstood; a strong communicator and infectious evangelist; and capable of becoming tough and ambitious.