My take on Go big or go home
I assume all entrepreneurs heard that before, it probably came up while chatting with other founders or investors but most likely in conversation with VC’s. Would you say it’s the right approach for your startup? Should we always go big? let’s dive in and find out.
What does is it even mean to think big? When you think about it, “Big” is relative to something else, bigger than what?
There are many examples of very successful small or medium businesses, impressive revenues, and very profitable, they also provide job opportunities and make their owners wealthy…even if you never read about them on Twitter or Forbes.
A good friend of mine was running a very successful business, he built it by himself and brought the company to be profitable, growing slowly but made him personally wealthy from a financial perspective.
He was always playing around this question and temptation to make his company bigger and expand globally…one day he decided to go for it…I remember that “I should go big or go home” conversation. He almost lost his business, the bigger it gets it automatically increase the stress level…and not everyone is built for that.
Entrepreneurs are all different, each one has its own personality, motivation, and the ability to deal with stress…and it’s totally fine — that’s the way it should be. The same applies to businesses are the same, our economy relies on diversification, and not all companies following one template. Any founder of a group of founders should found a company that fits their personality…it’s totally OK to have no plans for changing the world or touch the moon :)
I’m a big fan of innovation, especially of ideas that can make our world better. I truly believe we are not even close to the edge of technology innovation that will change our life…so if you have that kind of an idea and the motivation to execute it think big…as big as you can!
I was privileged to be part of one of the fastest-growing startup, I’m talking about my time at WeWork. I was leading a new business unit so in order to approve my business plan, I presented it to Adam Neumann, founder, and CEO of the company. There has been a lot said about him, good and bad, what I can say for sure is that the guy thinks big — very very big! Before my first presentation, I thought my numbers are too high, business is growing fast and perhaps the whole story is too good to be true, considering the fact we haven’t done anything. I was so wrong, Adam didn’t think the growth was too fast…it’s the complete opposite…he was expecting it to grow bigger and faster!!!
I remember that meeting, we were about 8 people in the conference room, including few C-level executives…at the end of the meeting, Adam pulled me aside and clarified some of the things he said about the importance of fast growth and thinking as big as you can. I’m not going to share the entire conversation but here are few important insights:
- If you want to make it interesting for investors — show something they haven’t seen before, it can be an innovative idea or business plan.
- If you want to raise a lot of money — show how in just few years the company will be worth at least $1B.
- If you were able to convince everyone you product is awesome and you operate in a very attractive market — grow as fast as possible, you’ll make mistakes on the way but they are all fixable…I remember one company meeting that he compared WeWork to an airplane being fixed while flying :)
In summary, not all businesses have to change the world or show innovation. Not all businesses have to be global and run complicated operations or announce on an impressive IPO…this adventure is not neccesiraly fits everyone. But if you decided to go big — definitely take it all the way and think as big as possible!
