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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Something that has been frustrating me more than anything in the last year. With the slower economy I have been able to spend more time just talking to people; strangers, family, friends, and just about anyone else that has something to say. Being a business person the conversation often heads down the path of success and how to achieve it, but so many people I talk to don’t want it bad enough. They would rather talk about it then do it. I am not just talking about building a business. I am talking about getting a job if they are unemployed, upgrading your current job, or starting a business.

When the economy tanked in 2008 I more or less lost my job. Every project I was working on dried up and went away. I like 10% of America right now I did not have the ability to collect unemployment, so I had to make a big shift in how I as going to support my self almost over night. Luckily, I was ready and the shift was something I was able to make quickly. I will get to what helped me in my shift in a second, but first a little rant. I have talked to so many people that are on unemployment and they are doing nothing with their lives. They talk about how they want to use this time to better themselves. They talk about the businesses they are going to build during this time. They talk about the personal brand building they are going to do to help them upgrade their employment when they go back to work, but they spend a great deal of time sitting on their ass playing video games or something.

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This spring will be my 10th year in business for myself. By no means does this make me an experts in business but I have learned a few things along the way. There seems to be two type of businesses; explosive and non-explosive. To define this further lets use the example of a sub shop. Once this sub shop gets operating the revenue for the company should be about steady. Of course there are ups and downs but overall there is not one big pay day. Money just seems to come in each month. This would be an example of a non-explosive business. Then there is the example of an explosive business. This could be a Realtor, loan broker, builder, lawyer, or whatever. These types of businesses tend to have big pay days. Money might not be rolling in everyday but when it rolls in it rolls in big.

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