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Focusing Just A Few Yards Ahead
Jun 09, 2009 -
In one of the interviews for my upcoming book, the case was made that, to fully engage in the entrepreneurial pursuit, you must be, to some extent, delusional. I was interviewing Andrew Weinreich, a classic trailblazing serial entrepreneur. Weinreich created one of the earliest social networks, SixDegrees.com, which he eventually sold in January, 2000 to Youthstream Media Networks, a publicly held company, for $125 million. He then founded meetmoi.com, a mobile dating service. In each venture, Weinreich has played the role of founder and leader.“Entrepreneurs are not the ones with the best ideas, they’re just the ones willing to jump off a cliff without the answers,” explained Weinreich. When he took the plunge on his first venture, he didn’t see a finish line - and he thinks it is wrong to have one in mind. Instead, he believes that the best start-up teams just try “to stay in the 5th inning forever.” Weinreich calls this “the process of willful delusion.” “If you have ends in mind, that’s a big problem.” You must somehow stay engaged with incremental progress and keep momentum, even if you find yourself staying in the same inning.
The award-winning American author E.L. Doctorow once remarked on what it is like to write a novel. “It’s like driving a car at night,” he explained. “You never see further than your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.” One might argue that the value of having a grand business plan or some master strategy is overrated. As entrepreneurs, we must be comfortable only seeing a few yards ahead.
Image above protected by Creative Commons, from Piotr Blaszkiewicz's Behance Portfolio.
Behance articles and tips are adapted from the writing and research of Scott Belsky and the Behance team. Behance runs the Behance Creative Network , the Creative Jobs List, and develops knowledge, products, and services that help creative professionals make ideas happen.All information (c) Scott Belsky, Behance LLC.
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