Few weeks back, I started a poll asking users why startup? What’s your motive behind starting up?
Here are the results:
- My Idea can change the world – 50%
- I work for morons. Cant take it anymore – 26%
- Starting up is a “hep” thing to do – 8%
- Fastest way to make money – 16%
Interesting results - so 50% think their idea can change the world, and thankfully only 8% “romance” entrepreneurship!
Asides, how many world changing idea are we witnessing today? What’s your opinion?
Hi Ashish
You have been doing an excellent job and I read your posts with interest.
Interesting poll. I have been associated with several ventures since 1996 and I could not help smile at the results of your poll. Back in 1996 I and bunch of other friends who started on their own thought their ideas could change the worlds too.
This is my humble opinion & experience, hope it helps budding entrepreneurs
1. Almost half the entrepreneurs think they are going to change the world and infact they are correct. They are right when it comes to the world they know or they are exposed to (a tiny fraction of what is out there).
Fortunately, there are enough smart people in this world, and every idea that is worth pursuing is taken. Thats the reason why world changing ideas are so rare. The ideas that are dumped or not taken are simply because they are not worth taking. Such inferior and dumped market places sometimes give budding entrepreneurs illusion of empty potential killer markets.
2. World changing ideas do surface, but they surface about ones in a 10-20 years and most of the times they end-up creating new industries in their own right. PC late seventies, Internet Mid nineties are some of the examples and now many think VM ware may just be the one.
My advise for budding entrepreneurs would be, to succeed, find proven markets that are big enough to sustain multiple successful players. Instead of chasing a pipe-dream of changing the world, chase a big market can make an average team look like a rock-star.
Sure you can change the world with your idea, but the chances that your idea is going to change the world are as good as winning a jackpot in Las Vegas
I hope I made my point.
Cheers and good luck
I honestly missed an option ‘I can do better things that already being done’
_
grrr punctuation
make that ‘I can do better, the things that are already being done’ 
Well..I guess that’s covered in “I can change the world”
In short, it is “FaceBook has changed the US world, I can change the Indian world by building a FB clone ”
Interestingly 16% think its the fastest way to make money
I must say they are either a highly optimistic lot or probably the most mis-informed ones.
Serial Entrepreneur, I have a slightly different take on it. Probably its a good idea to start with “change the world” as you will aim higher. Also to be successful in “proven markets that are big enough to sustain multiple successful players” you need to have “I can do better, the things that are already being done” attitude as Jagannath mentioned.
However, interestingly, if you look around and see the “change the world” types or highly successful ideas they almost never began that way
So I guess if you need to really stand out, you NEED to romance entrepreneurship and NOT look for a world changing idea…