"Being There"

There is no better motto for entrepreneurs than the Nike "Just do it".

Today, as I look online for the best way to remove snow from the roof of my house, I come across a product, "invented" 8 years ago by a 16 year old kid who is now 24, runs his own company, selling the product that I invented (and perhaps many others invented) years earlier. But even originality and invention mean nothing if the product isn't described, patented, produced, and sold. "My" product, designed and described on paper in 1992 in Evanston, Illinois--a long rolling mat heated to melt snow on our walk and driveway, never made its way from my drawing table to the patent office. My loss for sure.

Woody Allen and his admirers love to say that 80% of success is just showing up. Yep, you have to be there, and others have to know you're there too. Otherwise, like the tree that falls in the forest, no noise is definable unless someone is there to hear it.

Entrepreneurs must show up. And they must make noise.

If you have a list of inventions that are not yet fully executed, take it out and make that innovation happen. Someone else probably has a list that matches yours.