How to Build an Online Business

Chapter 1Mindset #1: Trust your crazy ideas

Do you remember Apple’s iconic TV campaign from the 1990s featuring scientists, artists and mavericks, with the famous grammatically questionable tagline ‘Think Different’?

Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules … You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them.

Entrepreneurs think differently too, which is why entrepreneurship often attracts the crazy ones, the ones prone to breaking the rules, the ones who don’t say, ‘Why?’ but ‘Why not?’ This ‘craziness’ is often borne out of a passion — a passion to right a wrong, make a difference, solve a problem, make a million.

This begs the question, ‘What’s the difference between someone being seen as crazy and someone being seen as visionary?’ The answer? The crazy ones just take longer to give up. Jeff Bezos’ Amazon started in 1994 but didn’t turn a profit until 2001. Alibaba’s Jack Ma and Google’s Sergey Brin and Larry Page also struggled to make money in the early days. Yet all persisted and stuck to their vision in the face of immense criticism and public pressure.

People said Trump was crazy when he declared in the 1990s he would one day become President of the United States.

People said Musk was crazy when he said that Mars travel would become a commercial reality.

Trump’s and Musk’s crazy ...