Hi everyone, and welcome back to week six!
This week, I read FAST COMPANY's The World's 50 Most Innovative Companies magazine. Although I am not going to be talking about all 50, I just wanted to draw your attention to a couple of them.
First off, Buzzfeed. I'm sure at some point on the Internet, you have seen something or another related to Buzzfeed. Although sometimes you wonder why in the world you read Buzzfeed (as a consumer), looking at it from a business perspective, you can see that they are completely geniuses. Buzzfeed has disrupted media and their operation is extremely data-driven. They have understood how to capitalize on people's escapism. You shouldn't judge people's escapism; people enjoy what the enjoy, and you need to understand the market/people and approach them as necessary. Buzzfeed is on a ton of social media platforms, and they use data-driven metrics to understand a whole slew of details, from what happens to a post when they post on Twitter, to the kind of revenue they can generate for people by doing advertisements on Pinterest. They have an ability to create stories and ads that go viral. They produced an enormous amount of content; but they pay attention to the data because it tells them what works and what doesn't. That's part of the reason they are so successful today.
Second, Riot Games. The Multiplayer online game League of Legends has absolutely exploded, with its 2015 World Championship Final garnering 36 million viewers online (nearly twice the audience of last year's NBA Finals). When League of Legends was first introduced, it was simply a cool opportunity for fans to come together. However today, they have their own e-sports channel, award scholarships, and attract corporate sponsors. They generated an estimated $1.5 billion in 2015 revenue.
Although there are a lot more innovative and interesting companies, I chose to highlight these two because it was interesting for me to see just how far they had come since their conception.
Now I'm just going to address a different topic, albeit in a shorter manner than I'd like. This topic is more than worthy of its own post or book.
The entrepreneurial journey is not a simple or easy one. Everyone that looks at it from the outside talks about it as though it is some glorified venture and that it's easy. Don't get me wrong, it is exciting. But what you see on the outside is either the success (or failure) and not how much it took to get there. I think problem is, people think entrepreneurs are those that build businesses; but don't understand why. Building a business or being in startup mode is simply just a product of being in the entrepreneurial mindset. It's just a tool in our arsenal. Being in the entrepreneurial mindset, we have a crazy desire to learn, do things, and solve problems. Our entire personality, the things we do, the people we want to be around, the problems we want to solve, and how we want to change the world are all defined by us being in that mindset. We as entrepreneurs intuitively realize that the most powerful way to make a change is to build an impactful business. So it's more that the business is a product of the mindset, not that mindset being a product of the business. I've always resisted trying to explain it, because again, there is no concise way to explain it, and quite frankly, if you're not in the mindset, you can never truly understand it. There are a lot of posers in the entrepreneurial world, and you also hear stories about how kids are deterred from entrepreneurship just because of how much they have to know. Honestly, if you are deterred from entrepreneurship because it's too much to process, then you were never meant to be one in the first place. It takes talent to do anything. Hard work simply allows you to bring out the best version of yourself. Let me give an example. I could work extremely hard playing basketball, but I would never be as good as Lebron James. I could get better at basketball; but I can only reach the level I was meant to reach. Same with entrepreneurship. Hustling makes you the best entrepreneur that you can be, but it doesn't guarantee that you're going to become the Lebron James of entrepreneurs. Finally, we do it cause we love what we do and do what we love.
That's it for week six, come back for more details on what I'm doing at Game CoLab next week!
This week, I read FAST COMPANY's The World's 50 Most Innovative Companies magazine. Although I am not going to be talking about all 50, I just wanted to draw your attention to a couple of them.
First off, Buzzfeed. I'm sure at some point on the Internet, you have seen something or another related to Buzzfeed. Although sometimes you wonder why in the world you read Buzzfeed (as a consumer), looking at it from a business perspective, you can see that they are completely geniuses. Buzzfeed has disrupted media and their operation is extremely data-driven. They have understood how to capitalize on people's escapism. You shouldn't judge people's escapism; people enjoy what the enjoy, and you need to understand the market/people and approach them as necessary. Buzzfeed is on a ton of social media platforms, and they use data-driven metrics to understand a whole slew of details, from what happens to a post when they post on Twitter, to the kind of revenue they can generate for people by doing advertisements on Pinterest. They have an ability to create stories and ads that go viral. They produced an enormous amount of content; but they pay attention to the data because it tells them what works and what doesn't. That's part of the reason they are so successful today.
Second, Riot Games. The Multiplayer online game League of Legends has absolutely exploded, with its 2015 World Championship Final garnering 36 million viewers online (nearly twice the audience of last year's NBA Finals). When League of Legends was first introduced, it was simply a cool opportunity for fans to come together. However today, they have their own e-sports channel, award scholarships, and attract corporate sponsors. They generated an estimated $1.5 billion in 2015 revenue.
Although there are a lot more innovative and interesting companies, I chose to highlight these two because it was interesting for me to see just how far they had come since their conception.
Now I'm just going to address a different topic, albeit in a shorter manner than I'd like. This topic is more than worthy of its own post or book.
The entrepreneurial journey is not a simple or easy one. Everyone that looks at it from the outside talks about it as though it is some glorified venture and that it's easy. Don't get me wrong, it is exciting. But what you see on the outside is either the success (or failure) and not how much it took to get there. I think problem is, people think entrepreneurs are those that build businesses; but don't understand why. Building a business or being in startup mode is simply just a product of being in the entrepreneurial mindset. It's just a tool in our arsenal. Being in the entrepreneurial mindset, we have a crazy desire to learn, do things, and solve problems. Our entire personality, the things we do, the people we want to be around, the problems we want to solve, and how we want to change the world are all defined by us being in that mindset. We as entrepreneurs intuitively realize that the most powerful way to make a change is to build an impactful business. So it's more that the business is a product of the mindset, not that mindset being a product of the business. I've always resisted trying to explain it, because again, there is no concise way to explain it, and quite frankly, if you're not in the mindset, you can never truly understand it. There are a lot of posers in the entrepreneurial world, and you also hear stories about how kids are deterred from entrepreneurship just because of how much they have to know. Honestly, if you are deterred from entrepreneurship because it's too much to process, then you were never meant to be one in the first place. It takes talent to do anything. Hard work simply allows you to bring out the best version of yourself. Let me give an example. I could work extremely hard playing basketball, but I would never be as good as Lebron James. I could get better at basketball; but I can only reach the level I was meant to reach. Same with entrepreneurship. Hustling makes you the best entrepreneur that you can be, but it doesn't guarantee that you're going to become the Lebron James of entrepreneurs. Finally, we do it cause we love what we do and do what we love.
That's it for week six, come back for more details on what I'm doing at Game CoLab next week!
Interesting take. But how can one figure out their ceiling without actually trying or putting in enough effort to get to the point where they are at their ceiling?
ReplyDeleteLike the Arizona Lottery system says - You can't win if you don't play
You're absolutely right Neel, it takes playing and building self-awareness and knowing yourself to figure out where you belong or how far you can go.
DeleteInteresting take. But how can one figure out their ceiling without actually trying or putting in enough effort to get to the point where they are at their ceiling?
ReplyDeleteLike the Arizona Lottery system says - You can't win if you don't play