Every new business begins as an idea supported by an entrepreneur who has chosen to take on the challenges every entrepreneur knows well – the potential risk of loss.
For all, a certain audacity is implied, but for some entrepreneurs, a naïve audacity takes risks to the extreme.
These often-high-profile “extreme risk-takers” include such entrepreneurs as Elon Musk, who seems naturally unaffected by the potential for a sometimes-phenomenal risk of loss. For others, the founder’s actions have audaciously implied a notable lack of experience, wisdom, or judgment. Think Apple Computer, Microsoft, and Facebook, to name a few.
It might sound scary – even reckless. After all, businesses thrive and grow thanks to forecasts and planning. Right? But as demonstrated by the successes of Musk and others like him – which include countless smaller, less well-known yet highly successful entrepreneurs – there’s something about naive audacity that can work in your favor when founding a business or organization.
Why?
Well, diving right in without fear of risk or failure allows you actually get started – which is quite often one of the biggest obstacles entrepreneurs face. Once you’re in, you’ll solve the problems, including figuring out how to make money, as they come up.
The same goes for trying to predict problems and their solutions. It’s simple: nobody can foresee what’s coming. Time spent trying to do so is time spent not getting your idea off the ground.
Will you face failures and setbacks along the way? Absolutely. But confronting them will force you to find new ways forward by coming up with the most creative and viable solutions possible. That’s what innovation is all about.
All of this will empower you to fail repeatedly – as all entrepreneurs must – but still believe in your vision and keep going until you succeed. Naive audacity
I can tell you a little about my experience with naïve audacity and how it worked for me.
The Genesis of an Idea
My commercial real estate brokerage firm had pioneered a computer-based, proprietary collection of apartment market and property data as a competitive position against other commercial real estate brokerage firms.
That condition had worked well until a competitive offering was introduced in the form of a printed notebook which included single-page summaries on each Phoenix market apartment property. Property detail was complete, including a black-and-white photograph of each property, and rudimentary rent and occupancy surveys, updated and distributed quarterly through the mail. The firm’s favorable competitive status was effectively eliminated.
I needed an answer.
The Search For Developing a Competitive Product Began
It was clear that another notebook of a similar type would only be another commodity. I needed a demonstrably improved product., More particularly, one distributed electronically.
Several years of investigating the potential of each new generation of software and computer hardware had not returned answers. Software and hardware were improving, but none were up to the task I had set out.
The Answer – the World Wide Web
Then one day, in response to a promotional flyer advertising a new concept in communication, I was attending a seminar on the World Wide Web. The presentation was riveting.
It was immediately apparent that the World Wide Web was a highly evolved tool capable of distributing real estate data at a considerably reduced expense. And that was just the tip of the iceberg. The competitive advantage I had been looking for was here!
There had been discussion among sophisticated real estate organizations for several years concerning the need for a procedure to distinguish one property from another objectively. But no one had yet bridged that gap.
I would solve the problem!
A Tempering of Viewpoint
The assumption was I would simply sign up for Web access and begin using it. But no.
The Web was a vastly complex new technology. A series of complicated hurdles had to be jumped. The problem was software required was a little-known technology called Sequential Query Language (SQL) which was Microsoft’s answer to providing access to the Web. And SQL was all but unknown to Phoenix’s software development community.
The condition was complicated by a flood of new product ideas pushing and shoving to get in line to make use of the Web. And all needed SQL programming. And an inexperienced software development community still wanted to charge $185 per hour ($336 in current dollars) for internet-related programming.
The effect was devastating.
Naïve Audacity Takes Over
There had to be another way. Through some brainstorming the idea of engaging an Arizona State University student part-time to learn how to program in SQL might be an option. The idea turned out to be correct. What had appeared to be an insurmountable roadblock was cleared.
Then while explaining the planned improvements to a client the question was raised, “why not expand into other markets besides Phoenix?” Of course. There was a business here! One national in scope.
The Startup
Two components were determined to be essential differentiating qualities for a successful national product:
A more robust, searchable database complete with color photography and detail well beyond what was offered in our competitor’s notebook and;
The formalized means of property and location classifications would place our product’s position well beyond our competition.
The necessities required to place a product on the market were overwhelming. I was also functioning with a fully naïve (I can do this thing) mindset, fueled by an audacity supported by unbridled enthusiasm.
I needed capital and an organization. It was a catch-22; one depended on the other. And the competitive environments for both were contentious. Investors wanted to know who would be included in the organization; competent individuals I would want for the organization wanted to know about the capital sources.
And such things as company name, logo, website, marketing materials, transferring our existing Visual Basic database to the SQL format, building a base of apartments, complete with color photographs, all needed completion
The proprietary system for determining objective comparison of one property and one location with another was successfully developed, resulting in patents being issued by the United States Patent Office on both.
Pierce-Eislen began business on February 1, 2001. After achieving national status, the company was sold 13 years later to a larger organization.
You can read more on the importance of naïve audacity played in developing Pierce-Eislen (now part of Yardi Systems) in my book, The Thicket’s Prodigy, available through Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and some independent bookstores. You can keep up with me through our website at galtmirrinpublishing.com.
