Living In A Future No One Else Can See

Every July in Montreal there’s this spark in my hometown.

It’s not just the sunshine or the smell of poutine wafting through the Old Port… it’s StartupFest.
And it always reminds me why entrepreneurship is equal parts delusion, discipline and defiance.

Lots of defiance. 

This year, I’ve been thinking a lot about something Phil Telio (the founder of StartupFest) said on stage to kick off this 15th edition. 
It’s a theme that kept surfacing again and again in the conversations, the pitches and the hallway collisions…
Entrepreneurs see things that other people don’t (yet).
They notice the invisible crack in an industry. 
They obsess over a single inefficiency no one else thinks twice about. 
They get called stubborn. 
Or worse… impossible. 
Incompatible (as Guy Kawasaki once said describing Apple’s Steve Jobs). 
A little too intense for how things already are. 

The reason they feel incompatible is because they’re already living in a different future.

And when they’re right… when the world finally catches up… it’s tempting to look back and say, “Of course! That was obvious!”
But it wasn’t obvious.
Not when they had no funding.
Not when they were told “we already have a solution for that.”
Not when their idea sounded like a napkin sketch from someone who hadn’t showered in three days.
Dana White often talks about the early days of UFC and how no one would host the fights or show them on pay-per-view… and they would show porn on PPV.
UFC was not obvious… it was illegal in many states… a bloodsport. 

And, yes… if I can get personal for a moment… this all hits home for me right now.

With ThinkersOne, I feel like I’m trying to build something that doesn’t exist yet. 
A new category… a new way to think about content, connection and how we can all grow at work. 
It feels so obvious to me. 
The problem is real… it’s something (I believe) every business needs.
But the process? 
It’s slow… it’s frustrating… it’s shocking to me that not everyone gets it and wants it.  

And I won’t lie… this might not work. 

Entrepreneurship is what happens when the present stops making sense.
It’s not about chasing the next big thing. 
It’s about refusing to live inside the limits of something that clearly could be done so much better.
So yes, it’s hard.
Yes, it’s risky.
Yes, it’s often lonely.

But it’s also how the new way begins.

So to the entrepreneurs out there… the ones building companies or rebuilding themselves… I hope you keep seeing what others don’t.
I hope you keep being defiant.
And I hope we give each other the grace to sound crazy for a little while… especially when we know (deep in our guts) that we’re on to something.

Even when those with more money, power and experience don’t see it yet. 

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