Why not getting what you want might actually be a good thing: a post for those wanting to change the world

Tamar and I visited Milan’s Pirelli HangarBicocca two days ago and while browsing through it’s art books collection I came across this text by famed art teacher Lorenzo Bravi:

“Utilize any available instrument to produce signs of various nature on white paper sheets. Make an effort to adapt the chosen instruments to unconvetional uses. Proceed by spontaneous and free experimentation: do not try to attain a specific mark or even to predict the outcome. Do not exclude any procedure or combination without testing it first. Once the outcome of the exercise manages to capture your attention for no apparent reason, the experience has temporarily fulfilled its goal. Repeat periodically”.

For the last 10 years I’ve chaired South Africa’s The Innovation Hub’s funding committee where we looked at funding proposals to help innovators advance their ideas. I’ve lost track of the number of applications we approved (guesstimate is around 200–250) let alone how many we considered. In all of the cases the money was never going to be enough to take the innovation to market and grow it to an international business. That isn’t because the entrepreneurs weren’t worthy of much more resources but rather based on the reality is that all business ideas have to go through phases that shape them and in turn determine which doors to open next.

So here’s the deal…

Too many phenomenal entrepreneurs, aspiring entrepreneurs and global change-makers often get stuck in the totality of their vision: in the idea that it is all or nothing, instead of just taking that piece of paper and starting within the boundaries of that paper’s size and the writing instruments at hand. A first highly imperfect draft shared publicly might open new doors, attract interesting people and welcome cooperative suggestions you never would have thought possible at the outset. When the developers of electric cars started creating, manufacturing and distributing them they didn’t let the lack of charging stations networks stop them. They knew that they had to start somewhere and that other innovators would fill the gaps (today in Italy they are testing induction charging highways that charge electric cars that drive on them).

Of course it is frustrating. Of course we want to have access to enough resources to get our ideas to a certain level. Of course we want to have investments that afford us to pay all our bills so we can be comfortable.

"Ground-breaking innovation rarely comes from an abundance of resources"

But ground-breaking innovation rarely comes from an abundance of resources. It comes from constant, recurring attention and time investment in progressing your ideas. In thinking out of the box because we can’t afford the box. In investing in spontaneous and free experimentation and testing those results publicly and getting feedback (and — most importantly — remembering to not take that feedback personally).

Here are a few ideas to help you think out of the box:

• Don’t have money to hire a kickass website developer? Develop your own and through it you’ll feel much more empowered to constantly tweak and finetune it. And yes: it is ok that your first draft isn’t orgasm-inducing (hint: steer clear of websites and concentrate on landing pages and conversion pages… google it to understand it)
• Don’t quality for a specific funding channel? Follow the individuals who work at the fund, engage with their linkedin posts, learn all there is to learn from them and what they do and study the businesses they invest in… what did those businesses do that made them investment worthy? Not just superficially… but behind the scenes… Not sure how to figure this out? Think outside the box (I could give you a few hints but that would be spoiling it).
• Want to learn a skill but don’t have the money to attend the courses? Good! Learn from YouTube and thousands of other free academies out there. The advantage to this is that it will allow you to understand better the subject before investing money… you might even figure out that it isn’t what you really want. And if it turns out it is: then you’ll hit the ground running faster with a better knowledge base.
• Want to learn what your clients love or don’t love or really need from you? Ask them if you can rent a tiny desk in their office and work from there so you can also get to see what they really need. Being top of mind (i.e. sitting close to your clients) is the best way to build rapport, trust and open doors to opportunities).
• Don’t have the resources to hire the sales team you think you need? Then figure out how to make your customers into your sales team (hint: lots of awesome tools to do this exist already for different industries). When we built TheStartUpTribe we knew we would never be able to keep our fixed overheads down if we hired sales people so developed (accidentally I must admit) a business that approached this differently.
• Struggling with your business model? Read about how different industries work, from gaming to entertainment to touring etc. Understand how they work as a business and see if you can’t apply some of their approaches innovatively in your sector.
• Not sure how to price your services and products? Experiment! Many a amazing companies started on the back of experimentations. You are allowed to change direction often if you involve your customers.
• Don’t have big advertising budgets? Then think out of the box (eg of a coffee shop I work from in Milan… they have lots of dustbins they have to buy. What if you gifted them a dustbin and co-branded it with the coffee shop?)

The most important thing is: don’t compare yourself to anyone! Ignore all those who are a few steps further along the journey. This is your journey and yours alone to make. You are the only judge of your progress (e.g. I sometime need time to really understand something before I try it so to an outsider it looks like I’m not doing anything when in actual fact I’m processing it and absorbing it).

Some pyschological heads-ups:

1. You will feel frustrated at times. Not all new things appear to be the right solution at first. Sometime using a half baked solution will do more to reveal the right solution than spending all the time thinking about it.
2. Don’t say no to something right away. Our brains have a way of wanting to box in new information and discard that which we don’t get immediately. Create an open-door policy for all new imputs: some to be used now and some will only make sense at a later stage.

Remember that the destination is more important than the boat you picked. If you want to cross the atlantic you might start with one type of boat, realise it is the wrong one and then go back to port to change it for a different one. The goal isn’t your boat (ie. your business model) but the destination (ie. the problem you are trying to solve).

This week’s newsletter is just a gentle nudge to all of you with big dreams to — in the wise words of that marketing giant Nike — just do it.

Regards from Milan.

Yours

The Chief Coffee Drinker

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