The toughest part of starting a business is actually getting off your ass and doing it.
There are so many people with great ideas, but they just don't execute. How many times have you heard people say, "I had that idea... first," or "They took my idea!" There's no fucking excuse that should hold you back from starting a business, just do it- get it done! Right? You gotta be a doer, and do, do, do.
I have heard excuses like; "I don't have experience in this, "I'm not talented enough in that, or "I just haven't had the time to get started.", etc., etc." Guess what? This is BULLSHIT! No more excuses, just take the plunge and get started. When it comes time to celebrate, the procrastinators are going to be wishing they could have just made something happen, looking at the doers and hating on them cause they had the balls to do something.
Our VC firm Zerimar Ventures, just recently made an investment in a company called eMoov, a leading online estate agent in the UK. Russel Quirk, the founder, is a talented guy, loaded with love, passion, and humility with a knack for seeing and doing BIG. As a third generation estate agent, he knows the industry, and he knows how to make things happen in this space. When Russell started eMoov several years ago, he didn't know a single thing about technology, online marketing, and what it would take to build an online company, all he had was a vision to disrupt the estate agency space. This is a perfect example of a DOER who never made excuses for anything. He rolled up his sleeves, put his head down, and used the shit out of Google to learn those things he didn't know. No excuses baby, no excuses!
On one of my recent trips to London, my wife Angela and I went to visit the company offices in Essex, a county north east of London. It was so freaking cool to see the culture he's built in this company and what a great business they have built lacking all the expertise in things like technology, marketing, pr, etc. This is why we love this company so much and why we jumped in to be a part of this passionate group of people out to make a mark in the space. This is a great example of someone who looked at an existing process within an industry that's been around for decades, and saw a better and more affordable way to provide the service. However, the most important part about this example is that I am sure there have been many people with this idea, but guess what, Russell was one of the ones that did it without thinking of all the things he didn't know.
Russell Quirk is a DOER.
That's the hardest part of starting a business- finding or having somebody with that kind of drive and passion. That can take all the excuses and push all the naysayers off to the side. It's not capital which is the most important part of a business... It's not capital at all. It's a matter of executing- NO EXCUSES!
Look at Google...this is one, if not the best tool that's been introduced to society in the last few decades. I always say that there is no such things as an ignorant person anymore, but there will be a lazy one. Many of the businesses and products being created today are not new concepts, they are old ideas that are being rehashed, improved, flipped on its head, or taking traditional businesses and computerizing them. Steve Jobs didn't create the mp3 player. There were hundreds of mp3 players out there on the market before the iPod came out, he just made them more user friendly and sexier than all the others. He also didn't create the smart phone, he just made it better and SMARTER than all the others. Look around you and look at things in a way no one has ever looked at them before. Don't think that because something exists, it's been created and there is no room for improvement. There will always be room for improvement or different solutions to problems.
There world has many unsolved problems. We need to continue driving change in the world by looking at problems in different ways or improving upon existing processes that were set up years ago by those innovators of the past. Do something BIG, start thinking and looking at what surrounds you, the ideas are floating around, we just need to grab them and execute on them.
When are YOU getting started?
What are YOU waiting for?