Google Firestarters #4

The fourth Firestarters event,  hosted by Google and curated by Neil Perkin, was themed around entrepreneurship and maker culture. The invite had the following quote attached:

“Entrepreneurship is the pursuit of opportunity without regard to resources currently controlled.” Howard Stevenson, Harvard Business School

This rather optimistic and aspirational definition was perfectly embodied by the three speakers. Each came from a slightly different angle, but their passion was evident. While I went into the event thinking that it was probably the least “relevant to my interests”, I came out it more inspired than I have been at the three previous events (which itself is a high benchmark). You don’t have to run your own company to apply the principles they were espousing.

Some of the most resonant quotes and thoughts I jotted down include:

David Hieatt (Howies, Hiut Jeans and the Do Lectures)

• “Artists and perfectionists want to sign their work” – such as Steve Jobs asking the Apple engineers to sign the motherboard of the Apple Macinstosh
• “Why is the wind in your sail” – it is the motivation for doing something
• “Quality is doing well in the recession” – buy less, buy better
• “Recognise luck and act upon it” – he wasn’t unlucky that he sold Howies to wrong people, but he was lucky that he lives in a town with a heritage of jeans expertise
• “You’ve got to love your product, and love your customer”
• “Hand-me downs have memories” – which is why his jeans have a history tag on jeans, which can store uploaded photos among other things

Toby Barnes (Mudlark and Playful)

• The internet has changed hobbies – they now have an audience
• We are not only sharing hobbies, but sharing the process via photos and blogs – this could be dangerous if we start to base things on what we think the general audience wants
• Instead, we should make something good for an audience of one and then scale that out – if one person likes something, it is likely that someone else will
• William Morris said that being a craftsman is all about hope – hoping the outcome will be good, or better than last time, or that someone will like it

Adil Abrar (Sidekick Studios)

• “Do something you love with the people you love”
• Head for the ditch – making a bad product is a good way to get honest feedback and improve a product (he thinks it is far better than a focus group – though Peter Kim would disagree on the notion of failure)
• Bring the crazy to the world – don’t stay on the fringes
• Vision changes, values do not – ideas can change, but your fundamental motivations stay the same (a semantic quibble, but I think execution would be a more apt word than vision)
• Solve problems that really matter – such as helping people who are dealing with mental health issues, as the excellent Buddy App does

Unfortunately I couldn’t stay for the unconference or the wrap-up, but the above gave many things to ponder about. Particularly around the question of why – which is the most powerful and most fundamental question, and also an extremely (and deceptively) difficult question to answer. These three entrepreneurs have discovered their reason why; we need to find ours.

sk

Advertisement