Being a founder - How it sounds impossible, until it is done

Last lecture was about great people. It was Bala's last lecture and the meaning was to sum up how different entrepreneurs can be in regards of the environment they live in. But what they really share is that they is that they change history, they change people's view on things. Changing the world does not require you to be the smarter person. What it requires is that it changes the world. A good example is when Rosa Parks denied to move from the white people section in the bus on her way home. Another example is Bill Gates vision on the future when he founded Microsoft and changed the world. These two examples are so different and at the same time so similar.

Now having thought about Rosa Parks and Bill Gates on how they changed the world, does that mean that they were smarter than Einstein? Well no... of course not. It just tells us that they are among many who could deal with ton of things and do the incredible things. It leaves them as entrepreneurs but not necessary genius though some may look at them as such. That raises up the question about how can you become a great founder. I looked it up on youtube and found Reid Hoffman trying to express his thought on that which was interesting.  He says that if you want to become a entrepreneur you might wanna hope having some superpowers. Because there are things which may give you edge.

Skills that are super important according to the LinkedIn founder are:

Founding Team

Delegation

Location

Vision

Focus

Flexibility

Evaluation

Confidence

Risk

Data

Persistence

Time Horizon

Now I'm not gonna repeat all his thoughts but I found his thoughts on location important. He mentioned that even though the Silicon Valley may sound as the perfect place for startups, then think again. Location of the startup is super important. Todays recent startups could never have thrived there. Think of GroupOn and AirBNB for example. A person living in the Silicon Valley probably would never had these thoughts there and it would have been a terrible trial market. So your location or your network of locations may be one superpower for you to become an entrepreneur. It's super important actually, Rosa Parks location put her into the position of changing the world. Same with Bill Gates, the world's inefficiency got him to change the world. 

When your location and the external factors around you adds up with confidence in doing a change you may find your self in the position of changing the world. Our most recent example of a man with these set of skills is Manoj Bhargava. This man became a billioner because of a energy dring he made. Which I actually have never tasted. But what made him an entreprenour is that he decided that he wanted to change the world. Finding a way to change the world isn't so hard. But it requires you to think of Reid Hoffman's set of skills. Because we are surrounded with problems everyday. Which drives me to handing it to Bala for being that person who has done so great in changing my mindset in reacting to problems I may face in life. He has affected so many people with his interests and knowledge that I'm sure that they know now when the chance of changing the world is laying there in front of their eyes. It's just so common that when we experience something annoying and know that it probably bothering someone else we just sit and do nothing. Rosa Parks said hey no more bullshit and changed the world. Manoj Bhargava became a billioner and discovered that he could change the world with his fortune. The opportunities like that can still be found. When you find that opportunity to take action and change the world what do you do? 

When you need that inspiration about changing the world just go to google and type changed the world under image search. You'll see my point. 

Nelson Mandela pretty much summed it up for us also, "It always sounds impossible, until it is done". 

Culture

Culture has played a big role in Bala's guidance as the class mentor.  In a way he has taught us that the culture is the secret sauce of a startup. It has given me many reasons to think of culture. What is a companies culture? After reading many posts on the web such as the post of Corey McAcenney on wired.com on startup culture, Candida Brush on Forbes.com and books like Zero to One I have come to the conclusion that saying a company has some culture of X is not the perfect expression but a much common one. I prefer to refer to the learning from the book Zero to One that no company has no culture, a company or a team is a culture. The ritual we use to describe our culture is what we as a team communicate about what we want to be, what we want the company to be.

Bala has managed to get us to think about how to start a startup, we are all really interested in this subject and we absolutely love getting wisdom from people out there who are willing to share with us their experience and philosophy regarding things related to starting a startup. And what would describe the culture of Bala's class? I think all his planning and research has been a part of the ritual he wanted to be the class culture. The class has a culture of shared interest in learning how to start a startup, getting wisdom from the ones who have done a startup and so on.

Gunnar Hólmsteinn, the COO of QuizUp visited us to share with us his wisdom on culture. And what I noticed was that this guy is not the academic type who gives us some definition on the white screen about culture, allow me to to skip to the wikipedia description: "the behaviour of humans within an organization and the meaning that people attach to those behaviours".
He's the kind of guy we need, because we could all seek the academic expression of culture on the web by our self. He's man with culture-creation in his fingertips. Some people have that ability to make a party a good party and I'm sure that he's that type. 

So there he was to tell us about culture and he just told us .. the best way for me to explain to you guys what culture .... is by telling you about my job....

And why did he do it this way? Why did he express culture on his first actions as the COO of QuizUp? It's because when we outline overall goals of startups we are motivating our culture.
When we show respect for the people we work with we are creating a culture of respect.

Every story an ex-employee or current employee can say about atmosphere in the company is that persons version of the company's culture. Because culture is how we behave with our colleges. And having given that a thought I understand the importance of the company's culture rituals and what the company does to get these values and the habits it powers to be a expression of the companies culture. Because in the end we want all memories to be pleasant.

The only question left is: what is a good company? What is a good culture? I think no company can be good company unless it has a good culture and because of that it's safe to say that the culture is one of the company's most important flavors.