The “no” is your friend, the “no” is usually right, the “no” is easy. It’s incredibly easy to be negative, it’s what comes natural to us. Coming up with reasons something won’t work isn’t hard. Ask if founder’s harebrained idea will work and it will be met with “no because....”. No because it’s just like this, no because no one uses that platform yet,no because it's a feature not a product, no because it’s too hard, no because the big boys will crush them.
There’s always a thousand no’s, coming up with them is easy. The web won’t work because it doesn’t do what the windows apps did, the windows app is harder to use with it’s mouse than the “keyboard shortcuts” of the DOS program, the PC won’t work because it’s expensive and easier to do on paper. The digital picture wasn’t near as good as the printed picture in 1999, no one uses the internet in 2000, who wants to wait on their amazon book to arrive via mail when they can just go to the store. Google is just another search engine in 2002, apple can’t do a phone in 2007 and Facebook and Twitter are a waste of time in 2010.
And most of the time the “no” people are right. Most of the time it doesn’t work, most ideas fail, except when it’s not true. Except when Microsoft had a goal of a computer on every desk and in every home, the no’s were wrong. Except when the internet, which was for geeks only becomes used by everyone, the no’s were wrong. Except when the camera phone takes more pictures in one year than all the pictures taken since that time. Except when Airbnb books more rooms than the largest hotel chains. Except when uber becomes the largest taxi company in the world. All are cases when people who said it wouldn’t work turned out to be wrong.
There are hundreds and thousands of examples where the no’s were wrong. I think it’s more fun to imagine what can be than throw no’s at founders. How can it work, what if the whole world used the service? What could make this amazing for customers? The only thing we do know is things won’t be the same tomorrow as the were today, so what about that idea might change the world? It’s inspiring to believe and people and ideas, it’s easy to dismiss them.
I'm building a startup called ServiceVines. I live far out from civilization and like it. I get really too excited over tech, economics, and food.