The Entrepreneur 'Ah Hah' Moment And How To Get It

I don't think the concept of "don't force it" can be stressed enough. Something I've learned living in Austin where there is a thriving start up community (or at least many people who want to do a start up), and from attending SXSW, there seem to be a lot of people who are trying to repeat the success of others by trying to figure out exactly what steps they took, and then attempting to repeat them "cargo cult" style.

Maybe there are a lot of successful start ups that were purposely built (i.e. “forced”), but it seems so many of them just kind of evolved, almost as a by-product. Maybe good start up ideas, and start ups in general, are like happiness; if you expressly seek to find it, it is elusive. However, if you merrily go about your way remaining curious, inquisitive and interested, it finds you.

When trying to repeat what other successful founders have done, it seems wise to keep the works of Matsuo Basho in mind: “Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise. Seek what they sought.”

Anyway, I had better get back to my idea brainstorming. I’ve found this great mind mapping tool! ;-)

I think being cranky is only part of it. You have to be cranky out of love.

In the end, you're building a business for other people. If you love your customers and love the subject of the business, then your crankiness is in service to them. A friend who's a successful restaurateur loved cooking and loved her customers, so she busted her ass to make things awesome for them. That love was returned by a devoted customer base and great word-of-mouth marketing. And once you have employees, you have to love them too.

You can see this scaled up in the the world's largest car company, Toyota. They obsessively optimize for customer value (as distinct from business value). Respect for people is one of the fundamentals of business. They channel their crankiness into hating waste and relentlessly looking for ways to eliminate it, which allows them to deliver more customer value.

I think pure crankiness on its own doesn't take you anywhere; it burns you out and cuts down good ideas before they get anywhere. For me, my best ideas come from crankiness in the service of love.

I didn't expect much from this article - but the tip about continually thinking "how could that be better" for everything around you is gold.

It might not lead to something most of the time, but when it does it could be a winner. Also its just a great way to train your brain into the right approach.

I'd add to the questions to ask yourself all the time: "How does that work?"

This is a very interesting article - the "don't force it" point is particularly pertinent esp when one is stuck for ideas. When that Eureka moment does strike (it happens to all of us) we need to have a pencil and pad handy otherwise it disappears as fast as it arose!