Spicer Matthews

Paul Wagner, (CEO of Forkfly), sent me this YouTube video today of Steve Jobs talking about how they build products. He outright says he looks around at what others are doing and shamelessly steals them. Apple then takes the stolen ideas and puts their own twist on the product often makes it much much better.

Through my past client, and now through my work with startups I am constantly running into people that want to reinvent the wheel. They want to start from the ground up as if there are no great ideas out there to steal. In the web world I am very very confident that if you are trying to build something there is an idea you can steal and make better. I think every project should start with finding an example to build from. I don’t believe in just trying to build something without a stolen idea as the foundation.

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So I continue to not be sure if I am in Gary Vaynerchuk’s camp or not yet. He is too new. Will he be a voice and a business leader in 2020? I don’t know. I sure hope so. The problem and the the driving force of Gary is the first thing everyone says is wow that guy is a “Dush-Bag”. Yeah he comes on strong. Yeah he has a bit of a know-it-all fashion to him. I feel the same way about Steve Jobs, Larry Ellison, and Donald Trump. Would you call anyone of those guys Dush-Bags now? All those guys have built empires. Gary has a long ways to go before he will be next to those guys, but the things he is very much like those guys. He gets it!!! He sees how the marketing world is changing. He see the power of sell branding. He also understands hard work. If you believe in him or not right now it does not matter, but if you do not realize this guy has a amazing view of business and one route you can travel with it your a fool. Until I get to meet Gary, or until I can public trade his stock (that is when the truth comes out), I will continue to keep my Dush-Bag flag radar on, but will truly admire him as a business person.

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So I have been around the block a few times. I have been involved with big well funded, well organized companies and I have been involved with just a few guys and an idea type companies. More often than I would like I run into people that have an idea, sometimes even a good idea. So many times all they have is an idea. No money or resources to execute the idea. I would like to make it very clear, IDEAS HAVE NO VALUE!!!

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