Startup Philosophy. How the future affects founders

Not so long ago, the topic of startups was one of the exotic on the Internet. But if we look at it today, we will see tons of information from this area. Already like hackneyed records, the topics of metrics and business models, landing pages and conversation scripts, content marketing and directories, etc. are endlessly scrolling. However, there are still unsolved topics.

For example. Information on building startups is growing exponentially, why then the appearance of new successful projects clearly does not follow this trend? Are technical issues important for the success of the project, or do you need something else? What characteristic should a startup have and what does its founders need to develop a business?

Someone prefers to read articles, and someone to watch a video. The content of the video and articles complement each other, not copy.


All successful projects are united by one common attribute

. Google, Facebook, Skype, AirBnB, Uber and others have something in common. Could it be a business model, audience, income from a visitor, or benefit to society?

Not at all.

A common sign of a successful startup is whether it changes the future or not. If you think carefully, this is the whole essence or philosophy of a startup.

Why so, and not otherwise?

Because this is the only criterion that cannot be undone or refuted. It is this criterion that allows a startup to develop into a big business.

Each investor’s favorite question is “What is the use of your project?” But this is the wrong question. Because benefit is a subjective concept based on today's user experience. For different people, there is a completely different benefit from a startup, and sometimes harm. Try to answer the question yourself - what is the use of Vkontakte or Facebook? For some, this is a platform for communicating with friends, for others, a way to meet new people, for others it’s a sales channel for their goods, for four it’s entertainment from watching cats, for fifth it’s a distracting factor that is difficult to get rid of, for six it’s a means self-affirmation, for the seventh - avoiding life's problems, for the eighth - a learning tool, for the ninth - listening to music online, for the tenth - a means of receiving news. The list goes on and on. And for those who have social networks as a distraction, Facebook, on the contrary, is a harmful service.

Is Uber useful? For passengers, of course. But for ordinary taxi drivers, the service is a threat and meets with fierce resistance in many countries.

But the main and unshakable thing is that social networks have changed the future communications of people. In fact, they changed humanity by changing the habits of people, their daily schedule, and ways of entertainment.

If we talk about a business model, then immediately come to mind examples of well-known projects that did not have any business model, some do not have them after a few years. What is this talking about? A business model will be invented sooner or later. But it will not change the essence of the project itself.

The same thing is happening with the audience. Startups designed for a young audience, over time, increase and age. Skeptics, like early followers, are drawn into services over time.

But the trait of a startup to change the future remains with him from the moment of foundation to the end.

What did AirBnB do? He changed the future of housing. He removed the intermediaries and allowed the landlord and the tenant to interact directly with each other. That is, before people, gathering in another city, booked a hotel, and not someone's empty house. Now millions of people are opting for apartments, houses, rooms. There is a changing world.

What did uber do? Service has changed the future of taxi services. Removed unnecessary add-ons, opened the possibility of calling a taxi with one click, and the driver to receive orders in the area where he is.

Instagram has changed the future of our photo albums. Now they do not gather dust on shelves, but immediately open to friends.

Google has changed the future of file cabinets and archives. Everything can now be found using the command line and at least a rough description of what we are looking for.

Twitter has changed the future format of news. 140 characters is easier to write than a two-page article.

Skype has changed the future of voice communications. Now this is a video call and the ability to see the interlocutor.

Tesla Motors has changed the future of the automotive industry. The electric motor has become a real replacement for the internal combustion engine.



If you look at any successful startups, we will everywhere see this fact of a changing future. They have different methods of monetization, different audiences, different benefits. But this sign unites them.

How is your startup changing the future? Think about it. Perhaps this is your mission, everything else is just a means.

The Future Affects the Founders

And now let's touch on the topic of how the founders of startups that changed the future were able to do this.

Is it a gift of foresight, divine power, pure chance, or something else?
The arguments that Paige, Zuckerberg, Kalanik, Friss, Dorsey, Systrom ... sat thoroughly, analyzed everything and came to the conclusion that they should do their services in the form in which they exist, sound very unconvincing. Read more about it here.

How do you like this option for their success? - The attraction of the future.



Is it possible that it was the future that influenced the formation of startups, some elusive connection with what will be and the present, allowed the founders to do what they did. No matter how fantastic it may sound, but it is possible from a scientific point of view.

The reason for everything is our consciousness. It turns out that it is she who has the ability to establish a connection with the future. This phenomenon has different names superintuition, superconsciousness, foresight, attraction of the future. And if philosophers and psychologists have long come to the conclusion that this is possible, now the era of proof of this phenomenon by the natural sciences is coming.

The subject of research by physicists is increasingly becoming the consciousness of man. The discovery of quantum mechanics and its laws made it possible to describe consciousness as a quantum entity and explain its mysteries.

Remember the movie Interstellar? The idea that a human feeling is a hero’s love for his daughter, is able to break through time and change physical reality, is not at all an artistic invention of the director. Jonathan Nolan also wrote the script of the film, based on advanced scientific research in the field of human consciousness on the idea of ​​theoretical physicist Kip Thorne.



If you omit the theory (you can study it yourself - sources at the end of the article), then the conclusions are as follows:

- For intuition (attraction of the future) or superconsciousness there is no concept of time.

- The whole quantum world is a single whole - there is no separation between myself and others. In the quantum world there are connections of all with everyone, past, present and future.

- Consciousness is able to establish a connection with the future and let us understand what needs to be done and thereby start the process of creating the future.

But the most interesting is the question, how can we understand that we caught the moment of attraction of the future. You understand that this is not a note from a stranger that you find in the mailbox or Almanac of sports results from Back to the Future. It turns out that this is a correlation of fragments of quantum information from the future and the present, which is enough for consciousness to gain insight.



It is enlightenment that is a fact of connection with the future. And if we carefully study examples of scientists' insight, we will understand why Archimedes cried out Eureka. In moments of insight, most scientists and entrepreneurs experience strong emotions. And between these groups there is a direct connection, one constantly explores scientific laws, the other the laws of the market. These emotions are called euphoria. The strongest positive emotion is a marker that you are on the right track.

We at the Grrow.me team have recently become interested in issues of consciousness, but the conclusions are simply amazing. And they allow us to interpret this knowledge on the process of building a new business.

If you look through the prism of a scientific understanding of quantum consciousness and the stories of successful Internet projects, then very interesting conclusions come to mind.

It turns out that all the billionth companies were created not by chance and not for a reason. Their founders have the ability to interact with and attract the future. At the same time, they experience an incredible emotional upsurge in the process of building their project.

Of course, this is not a ready-made recipe for a startup, but the saying "Do you want to change the world?" “Change yourself” takes on a more practical and scientific meaning.
More information on this topic will appear here.

And in conclusion, I will quote from the article “How Tesla will change the world” by Tim Urban -
“The history of Tesla is not about a car or an automobile company - it is about how changes are happening. And also about why they often do not occur.

Our intuition tells us that technology, social norms, movements and ideas simply move forward with time, as if progress is like a river, and these things are like a boat that glides along the waves. We associate the passage of time with progress so much that we use the term “future” in relation to a better, more advanced version of the present.

In reality, if a better future comes, this happens, thanks to the will of several brave people. The present does not welcome the advanced future, because the present is an interweaving of ideas, norms and technologies of the past. There are only flashes and small changes in the proven concepts of development, and this may seem to us a movement towards the future, but in reality it is only a polishing of the past.

When the real change comes, you know exactly what it is. This is a distinctive invigorating feeling when you witness how a breakthrough innovator makes his way through everyday life. I had this feeling when I watched the Steve Jobs iPhone presentation in 2007. ”

Startup founders feel the future and pass that feeling on to other people.

Sources:

Mensky MB “Public Consciousness and Quantum Physics”

John Searle “Myths and the Reality of Consciousness”

Dan Dennett “About Our Consciousness”

The Future Affects the Past

of
Antti Revonsuo's Psychology of Consciousness Book
Mensky MB "Consciousness and quantum mechanics"