Sukshma

Image courtesy of kiwanja.net

Ken Banks devotes himself to the application of mobile technology for positive social and environmental change in the developing world, and has spent the last 15 years working on projects in Africa.

In his essay, Mobiles in Africa: A Travellers Perspective, Ken Banks describes the entrepreneurial spirit thriving in Africa around the mobile industry,

“..Mobile phones are attached to bikes (two and three wheelers), and even boats, and taken to where the business is. In Uganda these bikes, known locally as boda boda’s, are hooked up with spare batteries and desktop mobile devices to create what are affectionately known as Bodafones”.

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“Failure meant a stripping away of the inessential. I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than what I was and began directing all my energy into the only work that mattered to me. Had I already succeeded in anything else, I would have never found the determination to succeed in the one arena where I believed I truly belonged. I was set free because my greatest fear had been realized and I was still alive, I had a daughter who I adored, I had an old typewriter, and a big idea, and so, rock bottom became the foundation on which I rebuilt my life.”

– J. K. Rowling choses to talk about the benefits of failure and the power of imagination in her commencement speech at Harvard. (more…)

Quote of the day on Entrepreneurial Judgment by Marc (pmarca),

You’d better not have a lot of doubts about what you are doing because everyone else will, and if you do too, you’ll probably give up.

Of course, an entrepreneur’s doubt avoidance is only a plus right up to the point where it becomes pigheaded stubbornness that interferes with her ability to see reality, particularly when a strategy is not working.

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I happened to come across this relevant post on on the value of business ideas.

Quote for the day: The most brilliant idea, with no execution, is worth $20.

“Ideas are worth nothing unless executed. They are just a multiplier. Execution is worth millions.

Explanation:

AWFUL IDEA = -1
WEAK IDEA = 1
SO-SO IDEA = 5
GOOD IDEA = 10
GREAT IDEA = 15
BRILLIANT IDEA = 20

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Nice quote from Larry Ellison to sum up this torrid week,

“There are two kinds of people in business; people who build products and people who sell products. Figure out how you fit into one of these two camps, or you’re toast.”

- Larry Ellison quoted on Found+Read.

Now I know why my head hurts when I find myself dealing with issues that have very little or no relevance to staying on track. If you are in a startup, such issues are plenty and tempt you every day. The raw environment of a startup requires, nay begs that you simplify your thoughts and focus on quickly setting and meeting goals.

Even if you are in the services industry and have an entrepreneurial mindset, focus on either one of the two things. Take your product seriously. That is the only way you will survive a startup later on.

For every brand and for every person, yesterday is irretrievably gone and tomorrow is worth a great deal.

- Seth Godin, on sunk cost and your personal brand.

Entrepreneurs are good at keeping their dream when everything about them is changing.