As I have continued to tour my country, preaching the gospel of entrepreneurship and the Founder Institute’s role in it, I keep seeing how our senses can be our own worst enemies:
- You work at a company, and are wondering whether you are willing to take the “risk” of taking the “plunge” into founding a startup. Guess what: it is a real question whether startups are actually safer than jobs. The fact is that the world is changing so fast that I’d rather count on my own wits and wiles than those of an employer who could well be asleep at the wheel. Reid Hoffman has more ato say about this in the start-up of YOU.
- You live in Puerto Rico and figure than the best opportunity is to capture consulting gigs writing code for some local business. Guess what: Amazon EC2 + Apple AppStore + Facebook means that you can reach a global audience reaching in the millions at low cost while sipping piña coladas on a Caribbean island. Not that it is Silicon Valley, but as I’ve repeated since 2009, Puerto Rico is No Longer An Island.
- Like every other geek you wonder which venture capitalists will finally back and fund your dreams of world-domination. Guess what: Kickstarter + AngelList + Crowdfunding have blown the top off of startup finance, and will continue to work the industry over during the coming decade, particularly since the Kauffman Foundation shone sunlight on the skeletons in the closet of traditional venture capital.
That is why Startup Weekend is so important: it demonstrates without a shadow of a doubt that with the right techniques startups can accomplish more in 54 hours than governments can in 54 years. That is why Founder Institute matters: it is placing at the disposal of global changemakers the know-who and the know-how to realize their world-changing dreams…it may not all be obvious, if you wake up and read the local newspaper…just don’t, and commit instead to seeing how far you can see if you just close your eyes.
“Honored followers of Zen, long accustomed to groping for the elephant, please do not be suspicious of the true dragon.” - Dōgen
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