A Sense of Necessity Decides Whether You Should Start a Company
My own story is fairly one-sided, so I want to start with the overall picture as I see it.
Needless to say, everyone has different motivations for starting a company. It seems extremely difficult to find a clear common thread like “it must always be such-and-such.”
Some people aim to contribute to society, while others are desperately reaching for a business opportunity that has appeared right in front of them. Others end up founding a company almost by accident, thinking “well, I guess I’ll turn this into a company” while doing things others asked of them or expected of them.
Some people aim for dramatic global growth as a startup, while others set their sights on meeting the needs right in front of them and contributing to their local community.
But within that diversity, I think there is actually one common thread.
That is “necessity.”
Necessity, despite the word itself, is in reality a very vague thing. How many things in this world can really be called necessary? The winner of the US presidential election? China’s rise? Tomorrow’s weather being clear?
Right, “necessity” is, for the most part, a fabrication.
But inside the heads of entrepreneurs, whether or not they show it, in most cases they are secretly harboring a sense of “necessity.” Put into words, it’s things like “who else but me is going to do this,” or “I’m confident I know more about this than anyone,” or “I was the first person in the world to notice this idea,” or “we’ve come this far, so there’s no choice but to do it,” or “it just happened this way, there was nothing else to do.”
All of these can be objectively refuted completely and thoroughly.
But entrepreneurs move their business forward based on them. Naturally, in many cases they run into criticism and harsh voices from those around them. But the sense of necessity inside them doesn’t waver. Because for them, it is “an objective fact from any angle you look at it (and I’m about to prove it).”
When you find something like that inside yourself. At that moment, I can say with confidence: there’s no reason not to start a company.
The content of this post is an excerpt (original text) from the following book. If you’re interested, please get a copy of the book.
The Shape of a Happy IoT Startup
The Shape of a Happy IoT Startup
Originally published in Japanese at https://clazytech.com/2022/09/1229/. Translated with LLM assistance and reviewed before publication.