When I was a little boy, I had the desire to build things. I would often take cardboard boxes that were around the house and create model homes and replicates of buildings that I would visit. By no means did I ever have a desire to become an architect, in fact, I hated drawing!
I didn’t realize that I was slowly turning into a creative thinker who would often rebuild the world in my head. I would use certain products and services, and they just didn’t feel right. Not being able to identify that feeling, left me ignoring what I would come to understand as my most valued asset.
My mother would often tell me that I always would pick the opposite side with everyone if you said right I would say left. I later discovered that I had a contrarian way of thinking about the world. Certain concepts are just simple for me to understand and I often found myself frustrated that people just didn’t get it.
I couldn’t understand why people didn’t want to build the world around them. Why exist in a place and never truly add to it? I would later find out that there are two types of mindsets that shape the world. Those who believe in adding value and those who take from the value that has already been generated. Neither one is incorrect, but I quickly uncovered that I wanted to create value.
I’ve failed many times at creating what I thought was going to be the next big idea. The problem was that I was thinking about creating value in the wrong way. I believed that taking other ideas and making small changes was the key to building something amazing, but I was super wrong. Early on in college, I wanted to reshape on-demand delivery. I thought no company was getting it right, and honestly, I still feel the same way. The problem is, on-demand delivery can’t work with humans in the picture. I’ll write a separate blog post about the future of delivery pretty soon.
It’s been a few years since my team and I decided to stop working on our on-demand delivery company and ever since then my innovative drive hasn’t been the same. I often have ideas to create companies, but then I remind myself that I only want to work on new technology. The concept of taking another person’s idea and adding multiple features on top isn’t my approach anymore. This time around I must think from zero to one and not one to N. I know that concept sounds confusing, but fundamental innovation comes from those who build companies from base principles, which is the zero to one paradigm. Read Peter Thiel’s book, Zero to One, and you’ll understand what I mean.
So what’s next? I ask myself this every day and often get lost in so many ideas that I believe will change the world. I have a deep interest in building technology for the next platform of the future, which I consider to be VR and AR. The technology behind those platforms pushes me to think about how the world will be in the future. Will the concept of going to work, school, and events change? I believe so, and I’m on a mission to uncover what that truly means for us all.
I want to create new experiences that alter how we interact with the world around us. I’m not sure if that means we will go after the software, hardware, or both. But what I do know is that we’re going to push the boundaries this time to create something new. Something that we haven’t seen before. I feel more responsible than ever now to create technology that moves us forward as a human race. That responsibility has pushed my thinking and forced me to go back to the basic principles and relearn the things that I learned as a child.
Most often people want to start a business but aren’t sure where to start. The best companies come from a place of actually solving something that you’re passionate about. You have to have the deep conviction that your new way is ten times better than the current way. It’s a hard way to think about business, but it’s worth the effort if you’re truly able to figure it out. Start thinking differently about the world around you and ask the question of why for everything. Built your world and stop waiting for others to do it.
D’Andre
