Silicon Valley Illusion
Facebook, Twitter, Apple, Google everyone of these companies are located in Silicon Valley. That must mean that the place is enchanted, magical…isn’t it? Isn’t it true that every company which is there will become great? Maybe it’s the other way around, the companies which are not located there will never be profitable right? Let me elaborate.
There is this new trend of thinking that business can be done only in Silicon valley and that you need to start to request funding to get successful. If you get funded you are “one of the startups which made it” and if you don’t try to get funded but work hard to stay in business you are irrelevant. The main problematic is that this way of thinking is being propagated to the very core of the startups/entrepreneurship ecosystem.
There is this key thing, not much talked about in business which I think is worth to be mentioned. In order to stay in business, you need to sell. That’s true, I know it’s hard to believe but it’s very important for you to do so. There is another bomb coming for you, in order to sell you need to work very very hard. Everything you knew turned out to be a lie, didn’t it? Things don’t happen magically and if you keep waiting for the magic to happen I think your odds of succeeding are very low.
If I take Albania for example, there has been created this 5 year old dreamers community which works very hard to promote the fund seekers. Some even write articles about these guys noting how good they are. I am not saying the guys are not great, I am just stating that it is the wrong way to promote entrepreneurship. In my opinion, entrepreneurship is not about getting funded, is about becoming free financially starting your own venture. Probably this should be what people write articles about.
I think the very best way of understanding the concept I am trying to give, is to look for the roots of Silicon Valley. Have you ever thought of why Silicon Valley is called Silicon Valley? Probably there were some hard working people some years ago, started very successful ventures and gave the name to the place, could it be so? Nah lets stick to the idea of the enchanted magical place, the place where you become a billionaire in 1 day. We don’t like the stories where we realize we need to work to achieve things, too boring.
I don’t thing requesting funding is a bad thing, I surely do respect people who choose that way for their business. I just don’t believe that to be the only way and Silicon Valley to be the only place where you can grow your business. What I firmly believe is that with enough passion, determination and hard work, everyone can achieve his/her goals, be it entrepreneurship goals or other type of goals. I think the block we think is caused by the place we live in or the conditions we had growing up are just excuses which hide our own mental blocks.
To sum it up, Silicon Valley is not magical, funding is not the only way of growing a successful business and becoming successful. I think that in order to achieve things we need “unblock” ourselves, work hard and start doing instead of talking and dreaming of the Silicon Valley illusion .
