Who’s Crazy Enough?

Brydon

I work on 20Skaters, ThreeFortyNine, Ontario Startup Train and a few others. My vanity site is brydon.me.

Founder’s Club recap for January 9th meeting…

Thanks to Ali Asaria from well.ca for dropping by. The most interesting tangent for me was this concept of how crazy you have to be to attempt creating a (insert dollar figure) dollar company. As well, if you show signs of success on that path, it’s very likely you will have to turn down multiple enticing exits along the way.

The thread reminded me of the book Different, in which she explains that insane and brilliant ideas are indistinguishable in their infancy. Large corporations, which are mandated to mitigate risk, are built to identify those insane/brilliant ideas and crush them. A brilliant idea, in it’s infancy, requires shelter and protection. Ultimately that is real opportunity that individuals who start things from scratch have over larger organizations. You, as an individual, can do crazy things.

If you’re out on your own starting something new and a corporate environment doesn’t think what you’re doing is a little crazy then you should consider dropping it. The point isn’t being crazy just to be crazy. It’s that in them deeming you insane, you know they can’t compete with you and you know you may have something brilliant on your hands. If someone in that corporate setting does attempt to compete with you, you can rest assured that a boss will kill that project at some point. It’s not what they’re tooled for, they can’t take on the risk.

This Wednesday at Founder’s Club, our friend Michael Lewkowitz is joining us. As always, spots are limited so please register.