creating awesome from scratch
what do successful programming, art and entrepreneurship have in common?
the desire to create awesome from scratch + the ability to market that awesome well…
- the desire to create: a genuine interest in creating something from scratch (that creates value and is bigger than yourself)
- the ability to market: knowing how to tell your authentic story and inspire action around your product (aka strategy to monetize, scale & having a strong leader)
on the note of having a strong leader with true interests, last week i went to lunch with mark. mark is a genuine, insightful and curious person who balances probing questions with focused listening. you can always tell a lot about a person by how they interact with their phone during a meal or while grabbing a drink. mark’s the type who gives you his undivided attention (a talent that i think is becoming rare in our society). i’d guess mark owns an iPhone but I really have no idea because he didn’t use it once during our entire conversation. (this was very refreshing.)
mark made plancast - a site that helps you manage and share your upcoming plans with friends. if you haven’t checked it out you should. it’s awesome.
in our lunch we talked about start-ups, technology, engineering-led businesses verses marketing-led businesses and the relationship between the engineer and the marketer… we discussed life philosophies, theories on failure, the psychology behind motivations and the like. i was completely entranced in the conversation from start to finish.
our convo really got me thinking…
mark is a developer who creates web technology.
i am a writer who uses web technology to communicate.
mark’s language is code. my language is words. i combine words to create meaning. mark combines code to create technology that enables meaning to occur. “assisted serendipity” is how mark refers to what he does. his goal is to make it easy for people to come together in real life. “inspiring action” is my goal. i want to share stories that make it easy for people to act on their ambitions. the key themes here are creating, inspiring, connecting, taking action…
mark and i also discussed the notion of being an entrepreneur. an entrepreneur is simply someone who takes on great financial risk to organize and operate a company. similarly, an artist is someone who takes on great risk (mainly time + energy aka personal capital) to create something from scratch.
programming is an art that becomes a business when its value is effectively communicated and demand for that product is high. the same goes for writing (and any other art). in essence, who we are and what we do is a product that we create and build. everything is a work of art.
like fred wilson, it was always ingrained in my head that someone is or is not born an entrepreneur. but perhaps it’s whether or not we have the desire and perseverance to create from scratch. is it that we either want to get our hands dirty and create things or we don’t?
i strongly believe that the business / marketing mind should be involved in the very beginning of the development process (and i’m specifically thinking of consumer technologies). we must study and master the needs of the consumer early on, and factor those into development. we must understand the people behind the product and the relationship those people have with the brands and companies who will help monetize the product (through value creation). i also think having a leader who knows how to see, articulate and sell a vision combined with the ability to prioritize and establish success criteria is critical to a company’s success.
what do you think? i’m still ruminating on all this so please feel free to chime in…
