Should a startup founder be a thinker or a doer?

July 11, 2016

An average human mind yields about 60,000-80,000 thoughts in a day which is about 2,500-3,300 thoughts an hour. At such an unprecedented rate of thought production, 90% thoughts are generally useless. But the remaining 10% yields ideas, ideas that have the power to bring about a revolution, a change for the benefit of mankind.

But, wait a second! If that’s the rate at which ideas get evolved out of a human mind, there ought to be thousands of innovations in a single day itself. There should be thousands of successful startups already solving all the problems the world is facing.

But, how does today’s scenario exactly look like?

We are experiencing growth, but there lies a huge mismatch between the folio of ideas and innovations. So, what is that ‘x-factor’ which brings about this difference? Yes, you are guessing it correct. The anomaly is brought about by the ability or the inability to execute that plan or idea. This is again the reason for the failure of so many startups even though they have some phenomenal ideas.

I have come across many people having their minds filled till the brim with enthusiasm and ideas about changing the world, but when asked about their dreams after a month, they take back their flights down to land. There are people who really want to bring in a change but are quite unwilling to sacrifice their well-settled life for this purpose. But he who dares not grasp the thorn shall never crave the rose.

Obviously, one who thinks of changing the system must have the zeal to fight against all odds. This single virtue demarcates an entrepreneur from a common man. Entrepreneurs are doers who think of changing the system and are ready to jump into the muddle to clear the dirt. Here are a few things that the entrepreneurs live by, which makes them doers.

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Stepping out of the palace to live like a miser

The journey of an entrepreneur is filled up with pits and falls. They have to pass through several difficult phases, some really shaky ones. One amidst them is the time when an entrepreneur has to live in pennies. There are times, when they have to prioritize their expenditure on their venture over themselves. Their initiative becomes much more than their own existence. Entrepreneurs have little fascination towards materialistic possessions and work only for the betterment of society. This zeal to sacrifice their lavish living and live like a beggar is what makes them doers.

Zeal about improving systems

The most distinguishing factor that demarcates an entrepreneur from a common man is their zeal to change the system and work towards its improvement. They tend to leave behind their selfish motives and think beyond themselves, sweating hard to bring comfort into the lives of common masses.

Enthusiasm to explore

Every entrepreneur is bound to install the feature of exploration within him. He needs to keep exploring all the time, be it the way of surviving or making the customers aware about the new ideas. An entrepreneur is one who is ever ready to find out various ideas and their implementation, when one does not work. He is one who will never bow down before adversities but will rather treble his energy and efforts to bring back shining rays back to his firm and his life.

A startup founder must be an all in one pack. He must be a thinker, a doer, a talker, a listener, a peon, a coder, a designer and everything moulded into one. It’s important to think before coming up with any decision. Thinking gives your plan a correct and definite direction and helps in evolving newer and better ideas. But, a venture can never succeed merely on the basis of thinking. Thinking is important, but thinking without execution is more like a fish out of a pond.

Execution of any plan is equally important for success. Without execution, the idea is worth peanuts. As soon as you have thought of a concrete idea, the very next task is to start taking baby leaps towards achieving the plan. It’s important to move fast, break things and fail fast so that you can learn fast. No thoughts can authenticate without its execution and no execution can ever be good without giving it a thought. But it becomes vital to minimize the gap between these two. Thus, thinking and doing are more like the Juno’s swans. Both work in parallel to make any firm stand victorious.