Think Foolish

Derek Neighbors wrote a blog post about the so-called “Reality of Arizona Startup Community.” Typically I agree with his perspectives on startups and community, but not today. And while I agree the Arizona startup  community sucks for the most part, I am disappointed by the apocryphal reasoning he uses.

Let’s look at his main points.

“The majority of ideas being presented here are shitty”

Who cares? We put far too much stock in ideas as the criteria for investment of our time and/or money. All ideas are worthless and most start off dumb or at least way off base anyway, so the real focus should be on the people and specifically their passion for the core intent. If you want to connect people and you’re passionate about it, just because you start with a bad implementation doesn’t mean you won’t discover new direction and motivation along the way that will allow you to pivot and find a space to excel in. The important thing is being smart enough and in tune enough with the core intent. The details are inconsequential, if you adapt.

“We lack a strong pool of mentors/business professionals with a track record of bringing product to market.”

Ignorance is bliss. If you are convicted about getting your product or idea to the market you will figure it out. You will try things. Fail. Try again. And again until you get it out there. Don’t let lack of knowledge be your excuse to not do something. More often than not the experts will impart their dogmatic thinking upon you and tell you what you can’t do which will only dissuade you anyway. Do something stupid. It’s OK.

“Seed funding is a joke”

Agreed. But not for the same reasons. It is a joke because you don’t need it anyway. Let’s say that someone was willing to seed fund your idea. Without the passion and commitment necessary to do it in the absence of money, having the money won’t help you in most cases. In rare instances you might have some capital needs to get off the ground, but mostly that is just a load of crap. Bootstrap, beg, borrow, whatever. If you aren’t willing to go it alone, you are not committed/passionate enough anyway.

“We are technically poor”

This is true to the extent that we don’t have a lot of successful small to medium-sized tech firms attracting talent. This is because most companies that size lack vision and the business accumen to grow. But again I ask, who cares? Technical prowess is not necessarily advantageous for startup culture, and mostly a panacea. It can help, but most ideas don’t take a PHD to get off the ground, and if you are willing to do some googling anyone can get a basic knowledge of technology.

So if these are all just excuses disguised as conventional wisdom, what is the real problem? I think it’s the fact that we aspire to be a “startup community” to begin with. That we measure ideas based on the fallacy that is the “exit strategy”. The best products do not come from people looking for an exit strategy. Let’s all aspire to be the best at what we do and to be leaders and experts in our industries. And doors will open. And the world will change. But all the talk in the world won’t help. You can’t will it to change. You have to be it.