Yesterday’s post on “Don’t follow the trend” led to some awesome follow-up discussions. A wonderful colleague of mine sent me the following comment:
“I think people end up following trends because they don’t have any actual interesting ideas. Why don’t they have good ideas? Because they’re not talking to anyone they don’t already know. They’re just ruminating on the same set of inputs everyone else has. I’ll bastardize one of my favorite quotes ‘You’ll be the same exact person in ten years as you are today except for the things you read and the people you meet.’ Get out of your chair. Go scare yourself.”
I think this is an astute observation (and an awesome call to action). And I think that at least in the context of startups there is a backstory to it: Broadly speaking entrepreneurs seem to fall into two categories — the ones who have an idea which they passionately believe in and who become entrepreneurs to turn that idea into reality. And the ones who start from the position of wanting to be an entrepreneur first and then look for the idea.
The latter ones are often the ones who chase a trend (as they didn’t have an idea to start with). And especially for those the advise above is critical.
So — as my colleague writes: Get out of your chair and scare yourself this weekend!