There is no passion to be found playing small — in settling for a life that is less than the one you are capable of living.
- Nelson Mandela”
Are we thinking big enough?
Are our startups and entrepreneurs having bold enough visions for the future? Are we as people truly living the best and most productive lives we can live? Are we as citizens entertaining big enough plans for our communities and cities?
In the past, there has been some discussion about how Quebecers should be thinking bigger and bolder. A 2005 manifesto titled For a Clear Sighted Vision of Quebec (“Pour un Quebec Lucide”) painted a timid portrait of Quebecers, while outlining several solutions to generate increasing prosperity in the future.
Of course, even when we are thinking big enough, it’s always helpful to visit other cities to benchmark our ambitions. Personally, I’ve always loved situations that make me think bigger.
This week, I’ve had several opportunities to be challenged to think bigger, notably by attending the Next 36 Selection Weekend in Toronto, the C100 48 Hours in the Valley program in San Francisco and the Real Ventures & Founder Fuel founder meetup in Las Vegas.
These 3 back-to-back events have definitely pushed me to think bigger. Here’s why.
The Next 36 Selection Weekend
The Next 36 is a Canada-wide program designed to “nurture the entrepreneurial promise of 36 undergraduates with extraordinary potential each year”. The program was “founded by a small group of entrepreneurs, business leaders and academics in response to Canada’s need for more high-impact entrepreneurs, and is championed by Founding Patrons W. Galen Weston, Paul Desmarais, Sr. and Jimmy Pattison”.
The program attracts the most impressive and accomplished students from across Canada with the aim of creating a new crop of fast growing startups — and ultimately the next generation of Canadian business leaders.
I have recently joined as a mentor for the 2014 cohort. I was in Toronto this past week for the National Selection Weekend held at MaRS Discovery District to help select students that would make it to next round.
Here is the full Next 36 cohort for 2014!
From the moment the students walk in to the program, they are challenged by the organizers to think bigger. They are are challenged to build a business that will change the world. This is definitely not the place for small thinking!
The weekend was kicked off by a memorable allocution from Rebecca MacDonald, Executive Chairman of the Board of Just Energy Group. The serial entrepreneur talked about pioneering business deals during oil & gas deregulation and making her place in a male-dominated industry. MacDonald convinced the audience of dreaming bigger dreams and executing on them, one cold call at the time.
On Sunday, along with my wonderful co-mentor Michelle, I had the chance to lead a discussion with our team where we evaluated two startup ideas the team could work on. Both ideas had large potential markets. Our team could also leverage some significant domain knowledge to support both ideas. One was a SaaS play, one was a wearable technology company. At the end of day, the choice came down to passion and impact. We asked the question: “Which idea are you more passionate about and which do you think has a bigger chance to change the world?”.
Once the question had been asked, the answer soon became obvious! If these young entrepreneurs had decided to participate in the challenging Next 36 program in the first place, invest countless hours in their venture over the next months and relocate to Toronto this summer to pursue their project, they definitely wanted a shot at changing the world! With lots of hard work and bit of luck, I think they just might!
Good luck to all Next 36 teams in pursuing their big bold visions over the next several months!
C100 48 Hours in the Valley
48 Hours in the Valley is a program designed to connect Canadian entrepreneurs with Silicon Valley. The program is run by amazingly bunch of folks, including lead organizer Atlee Clark.
The program is organized in conjunction with the C100, an inspiring group of Canadian technology executives and business people now living in the Valley.
As part of the program, we had the benefit of hearing from amazing speakers from Uber, Joyus and Adobe. Their talks focused on how to scale yourself and your organization in order to execute your big vision.
Meetings with mentors from leading tech companies like Twitter, Google and Facebook, as well as venture capitalists (VCs), also encouraged participants to keep thinking bigger. Every world-changing organizations started with an idea — and the willingness to think bigger.
Jonathan Erlich, a VC at Foundation Capital and ex-Facebook Marketing exec, was particularly compelling as he implored entrepreneurs to think bigger: “If your idea is to dominate a small Canadian city, I’m not interested. Don’t come and see me, unless you are starting from that small city to create and spread your revolution around the world. We care about those types of big ideas”.
Real Ventures & Founder Fuel founder meetup
Last but not least, Real Ventures & Founder Fuel held their first ever Founder meetup in Las Vegas. Over 70 founders and friends of the fund showed up to learn from speakers like Tony Hsieh (Zappos), Howard Lindzon (Stocktwits), Derek Ball (AtVenu) and Damien Patton (Banjo).
First up, the tour of the Zappos campus was inspiring and gave us a glimpse inside their unique corporate culture. It was great to see how two guys selling shoes built a 1,500 employee company that sells millions per day and was eventually acquired by the world’s largest online retailer, Amazon. The new Zappos headquarters are located in the Downtown Las Vegas’ old city hall. When we visited, a crew was busy putting up a huge christmas tree with cranes. Even the tree was big! Apparently, when the new office opened, Zappos held the largest ribon cutting ceremony ever. Again, no small thoughts!
Perhaps the most awe-inspring portion of the entire founder meetup was the visit of Zappos founder’s Tony Hsieh Downtown Project, the $350M urban revitalization project of Fremont East that combines investment in real estate, education, arts and tech startups. Fremont East is a community-focused neighourhood filled with bars, restaurants and shops run by local business owners. The idea is to create a great place to “live/work/play”.
The revitalization includes lots of interesting programming, including First Friday art fairs, Learning Village workshops and themed weeks. A key part is the annual Life is Beautiful festival, that combines music (more than 70 bands!), food, art and learning. Hsieh mentionned that the festival was the largest in-city festival in the world, spanning over 15 city blocks.
Tony has aerial plans of Fremont East in his living room showing available real estate to expand the community. This illustrates Tony’s passion and commitment to his impressive vision for a new type of community.
Even in a city like Las Vegas, where everything is already very big or supersized, Hsieh’s vision to create a replicable model for a thriving community might just be the boldest vision around.
How to Think Big
Of course, big visions can also be daunting.
Here’s a quick how-to guide to help you manage those big thoughts:
- Surround yourself: Big projects can seem scary alone. The easiest way to manage that is to team up with awesome collaborators that share your optimism for the future. If you’re a visionary, think about surrounding yourself with pragmatists and do-ers. Optimism is a necessary and inherent component to bold visions, but you also need folks who can challenge your vision as well!
- Build an action plan: Grand visions are great. Many people have them — but very few get the chance to transform them into reality. The difference is planning and execution. There are no overnight successes. Grand visions without an unwavering commitment to get things done are worth little.
- Accept fear and doubts: You should always try to do things that scare you. Fear is often the admission ticket to doing innovative work. Without fear of failure, there is limited progress. Let go of your doubts and just keep at it. It’s OK to have big thoughts. Steve Jobs reminded us: “If you’re not here to make a dent in the universe, why even be here?”
- Brush off the critics: Many outsiders likely won’t understand your vision. They might also be opposed or have genuine concerns. You should try to address those when possible, but don’t let those stop you. Follow your vision and others will often rally to your project once progress is made or social proof is built.
- Roll-out sequentially: If you can, do one piece at a time. This is a great way to optimize execution, keep motivation level high (short feedback loops and quick wins will boost morale) and minimize risks. So chunk the work up and get going!
- Sequence the funding: Align funding with duration of project. Large projects take time, and your funding strategy needs to take that into account. Separate the financing in tranches with specific milestones. You may also want to mark up your spend estimates by approximately 30% to cover unforeseen expenses.
To infinity and beyond
Photo: Startup Quote
As Tony Hsieh from Zappos reminded us, a great brand/company/city/community is a story that never stops unfolding. In other words, the story always has new elements, new chapters and new milestones that appear as time progresses. In other words, there is always novelty, progress and growth.
In a way, this suggests that the entrepreneur’s role is to curate that story and move it forward. Thus, the entrepreneur always should be creative, look to the future and think bigger in order to keeping pushing the story forward.
Since we started with a quote from Nelson Mandela, a man who had big dreams for his people and his country, it seems fitting to close on this inspiring reminder.
