I’ve known Ethan Pierse for many years and finally had a chance to meet him in person a few weeks ago. We spent a half day together and over dinner I turned to him and said, “This is the most interesting conversation I’ve had all year”

Both of us lamented that we should have recorded the coversation … so I did by inviting him on the Marketing Companion podcast. You’re in for a treat!

Ethan is a serial entrepreneur who has become an AI innovation authority. As founder of Borderless Ventures he advises AI startups throughout Europe and Asia.

In this show, we discuss

• The rise of the AI solopreneur
• The ROI of AI and the investment bubble
• Practical AI applications
• The unseen evolution of Web3

… and more

To tune in, simply click on this link:

Click here to enjoy The Marketing Companion Episode 326

And here is a text review of the show’s highlights:

The Rise of the AI Solopreneur

At the heart of Ethan’s current work is his passion for “democratizing opportunity” with AI. Through Borderless Ventures, he invests primarily in generative and agentic AI solutions — tools that power not only creators and solo business owners but also small, nimble teams with global reach.

Pierse

Ethan is also writing a book, The AI Solopreneur Economy, capturing this moment where entrepreneurship is open to more people than ever.

He argues that AI isn’t just for developers or technical founders. Instead, non-technical but entrepreneurial folks can now build tech products without deep coding skills. AI is breaking down traditional barriers and letting more people “create their own future.”

The scale is already astonishing: micro teams — or even individuals — are building seven- to nine-figure businesses, something unimaginable even a decade ago. With AI, a solopreneur can achieve what once took dozens of staff and millions in capital.

No Longer a Game for the Valley Alone

Ethan dismisses the outdated idea that innovation must happen only in places like San Francisco, London, or Tel Aviv. The global pandemic, he notes, accelerated the move to remote work, further eroding geographic boundaries.

Now, founders are building companies from “where they’re at,” whether that’s Eastern Europe, Southeast Asia, or their hometowns in France. Borderless Ventures itself is based in Singapore and Estonia, reflecting this new, decentralized reality.

While networking and physical proximity still matter for building relationships, huge opportunities are everywhere, especially since digital and AI-powered startups can scale from anywhere. And the cost to start is lower than ever: Ethan recalls when hard drives cost half a million dollars; now, world-class web hosting and AI credits are free or nearly free for newcomers. The barrier to entry for big ideas is almost nonexistent.

The AI Bubble: Hype or Real?

With so much venture capital sloshing around — companies with ten employees are valued in the billions — a debate rages about whether AI is in a bubble. Ethan’s take? Short-term overvaluations are normal for disruptive tech, but what’s happening now is like a gold rush: not just for today’s productivity gains, but for the possibility of reaching artificial general intelligence (AGI) and even “artificial superintelligence” (ASI).

The tech giants are pouring in trillions to build massive data centers and train ever-larger models. In Ethan’s view, most of this is a race to own the future: whoever reaches ASI first may hold the keys to solving everything from interstellar travel to aging.

But it’s not all sci-fi. Right now, AI is driving real value in automating repetitive, high-value workflows.

Practical AI: Working Smarter, Not (Just) Harder

One crucial point Ethan makes is that extracting value from AI today is less about the tool, and more about learning to “talk” to it — that is, prompt engineering. Those who learn how to properly instruct AI (by, for example, writing detailed product requirements documents or SOPs) will get dramatically better results.

Ethan sees a coming wave where companies won’t fire en masse, but will simply not replace roles that AI can fill. Already, firms like Fiverr and Shopify are saying they won’t rehire unless a position can’t be done by AI. “Our days are numbered,” as one tech CEO put it, making it more important than ever to upskill and learn to collaborate with automated assistants.

The Unseen Evolution of Web3

While the buzz around Web3 and crypto has cooled, Ethan remains bullish on the foundational ideas. The technology stack of Web3 — blockchains, NFTs, and tokenization — matters not because people care about “crypto,” but because it introduces seamless, direct relationships and removes unnecessary intermediaries.

Look past the jargon, Ethan says, and you’ll find real-world use cases—soulbound NFTs verifying Harvard degrees, limited-access smart contracts for music releases, or authenticated logistics chains for wine and luxury goods. What matters is the efficient proof of origin, authenticity, and ownership. As user interfaces improve and blockchain transactions go “invisible,” Web3 will underpin a huge swath of future commerce and digital experiences.

A unique crossover between Web3 and AI? Agentic AIs—digital agents that perform tasks in workflows—can transfer value between themselves using stablecoins (crypto-pegged to dollars or euros). This enables automated micro-transactions at massive scale, with companies like JP Morgan already processing billions internally using their proprietary coins.

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The post The Era of AI Solopreneurship Starts Now appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.

I saw an interesting headline that caught my eye: “The 10 rules of growth.”

OK. I’ll bite.

When I clicked, I discovered a research paper from McKinsey that examined the growth habits of successful companies. I read this through the lens of a small business owner and thought it would be interesting to add my observations. Do these 10 rules of growth ideas fit for everybody? Even small businesses like mine?

I was curious. So here’s my take.

I present to you the 10 rules of growth — with my entrepreneurial spin!

1. Put competitive advantage first.

The article states that you should start with a winning, scalable formula.

I think this is an essential idea. When I consult with businesses, I often find they don’t have a clear idea of how they stand out. If you can’t explain your point of differentiation to me simply, how do you expect customers to understand why you’re special?

I encourage business leaders to finish this sentence: “Only we …” to work through meaningful points of differentiation. It might take weeks to come up with the answer, but it’s there. And once you find it, it’s liberating and provides a map of possible growth.

2. Make the trend your friend.

I LOVE this.

In my book Cumulative Advantage, I write about creating momentum by gearing your competitive advantage to seams of opportunity created constantly by this fast-changing world.

In my TED talk, I describe the strategy of attaining relevance like a surfer. Chances are, you have a great surfboard (competitive advantage). You don’t need to abandon your surfboard — you need a new wave!

Being constantly aware of the trends and prioritizing profitable, relevant, fast-growing markets is an absolute requirement for entrepreneurs! We don’t have time to keep re-inventing ourselves, and we don’t need to if we’re aware of the relevant waves of change coming at us.

3. Don’t be a laggard.

The article states that it’s not enough to go with the flow — you need to outgrow your peers.

This means you need to be the best in your niche.

When I taught about social media and content marketing in the past, I used to describe a model called “RITE,” which stands for

• Relevant
• Interesting
• Timely
• Entertaining

In the early days of digital marketing, that was enough. Around 2016 I added an S — RITES. This is for Superior. You just can’t be good. You have to be superior, or you will be abandoned. Keep pushing for better.

4. Turbocharge your core.

For me, this means FOCUS.

Lack of focus is a HUGE problem with the entrepreneurs I coach. They jump from idea to idea without a plan. I am a big fan of focus and discipline in the small and growing business!

Focus on growth in your core industry — you can’t win without it.

If I had to vote on the most important among these rules for growth, it would be this one because it is such a fail point for so many businesses.

5. Look beyond the core.

The article suggests you need to nurture growth in adjacent business areas. Now, we need to be a bit careful not to mess up our focus, but yes. When it’s time to grow, look at adjacencies.

Here’s what I’ve found for most small businesses — the world is telling them how to grow, and they’re just not hearing it. Sometimes entrepreneurs fall so deeply in love with one idea and one vision of the future that they’re ignoring the new ways customers are pulling them into profitable new opportunities!

6. Grow where you know.

Pay attention to interesting new needs and trends in your local city and community. Some of the most amazing businesses have been created from small observations about trends on the local level.

This is where small businesses find the gold. Most niches are overlooked by big companies looking for the next $100 million idea. But entrepreneurs have the power and connections to make riches in the niches.

The article specifically points out that this is a winning strategy as you seek adjacencies. How do your skills and competencies overlap with other new market needs?

7. Commit to winning on the home front.

Just as it is hard to achieve overall growth if your core business isn’t thriving, it is unlikely that you can raise your growth trajectory without winning in your local market.

As an entrepreneur, this is your test bed. If you can win in your home market, you can learn lessons that will help you …

8. Go global.

Here’s the most exciting aspect of most entrepreneurship today: Almost every business is potentially an international business because the internet can provide global interest for any promising product or idea.

This was a mistake I made early in my entrepreneurial career. I was thinking way too small. I was planning for my business to be contained within my local region when in fact, the world found me and hired me.

Pay attention to global traffic trends on your website analytics.

9. Acquire programmatically.

McKinsey studied large companies to create this report and found that mergers and acquisitions account for approximately one-third of the revenue growth among companies in the data set.

When starting a company, the emphasis is usually on organic growth and cash flow. So this was perhaps a little less relevant for the entrepreneurial mindset.

While you might not be thinking about mergers and acquisitions early on, don’t overlook the power of collaborations.

10. It’s OK to shrink to grow.

The report suggests ruthlessly pruning your portfolio if you need to.

This is a very healthy suggestion. As a business owner wearing many hats, I tend to get into a groove of activity, without looking up to see if that activity is still working like it used to.

At the end of each year, I spend a few days thinking about strategy and taking a clear-eyed look at what I’m doing, what I need to quit, and what I need to start. This has resulted in some dramatic shifts over the years. But I guess you have to ask yourself … the world is changing so fast … if you’re NOT making dramatic shifts too, is something wrong with your strategy?

Final comment, a teachable moment!

I thought this was an interesting article on the rules of growth, and I hope you liked the way I presented the ideas in a relevant format.

I’d also like to point out the blogging technique I used today. I’ve created a meaningful, interesting post of nearly 1,000 words — and the original idea was not my own.

I probably do something like this once a quarter when I see some other article that is profoundly interesting … but missing something. In this case, I am viewing the philosophy behind a multinational growth strategy through the lens of an entrepreneur.

Perfectly legitimate, and for one day, it took a little pressure off of me to come up with an original idea. And of course, I’m also benefiting McKinsey by positively highlighting their work and linking back to them.

A win all the way around!

Mark Schaefer is the executive director of Schaefer Marketing Solutions. He is the author of some of the world’s bestselling digital marketing books and is an acclaimed keynote speaker, college educator, and business consultant.  The Marketing Companion podcast is among the top business podcasts in the world. Contact Mark to have him speak to your company event or conference soon.

Follow Mark on Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Instagram. Discover his $RISE creator community.

Illustration courtesy Unsplash.com

The post Interpreting the 10 rules of growth as an entrepreneur appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.

By Kiki Schirr, {grow} Contributing Columnist

When you’re starting your own journey as an independent creator or entrepreneurial marketer, the one thing you’ll always have in abundance is criticism. Well-meaning people will discourage you, say the market is too crowded, tell you to wait until the economy is better … a thousand different ways to say “no.”

The comments that cause embarrassment, that hurt, and make you question your plans are usually about you, not your business.

People will object to your risk-taking for many different reasons. You’re late and disorganized. You don’t have the energy or motivation. You’re more about ideas than execution.

Well, it’s time to flip the script.

Is that a personal failing?—or is it a feature?

Okay, sure, people who are punctual, hard-working, detail-oriented perfectionists are likely to have great success — as an employee somewhere. Those are all great skills for people who punch a clock, selling their time to build someone else’s dream.

If you want to create something, start something, or build something of your own, you might be surprised which qualities are actually assets.

Instead, learn to harness the upside of the shortcomings people harp about. This list of “flaws-become-features” will provide famous examples of people and businesses flipping the script on criticism.

And maybe it will help you to do the same!

“Feel embarrassment? Him? He’s shameless!”

When’s the last time you really embraced embarrassment?

I’d be willing to bet the most successful creators can readily tell you about their last humiliation.

After all, Richard Branson cross-dressed to raise money for a charity.

Doja Cat made a video about being a cow before her breakout.

Mark Cuban got schooled by Randy Orton in the WWE ring.

Independent creators learn to stifle their pride because often opportunities exist behind the barrier of social disapproval. When others wouldn’t dare, an entrepreneur stands up, takes the mic, and belts out the lyrics to the theme from Lion King.

Preparing for embarrassment takes resolve, but that skill might also take you to the [big] top

“If you’re not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you’ve launched too late.”

So shout your URL from the rooftop. Wear your company’s tee to weddings. Beg talent on bended knee to join your team, if that’s what it takes to get things done.

Being shameless opens access to opportunities your competitor is too timid or too polite to seek.

“He’d argue with a fence post!”

Being pegged as a contrarian might not be a bad thing for a creator.

If the status quo remains unquestioned —i f no one at a company wonders if a process could be improved or made more efficient — then that company becomes a slow-moving Kmart-of-a-brontosaurus, food for faster, smarter, and more innovative Wal-Mart-velociraptors.

Of course, there are many real-world cautionary tales of an industry’s refusal to change, even when faced with one of Christiansen’s disruptive innovations. Examples of entire industries, wiped out by better technology from smaller, faster companies abound.

Of course, the more entertaining stories play out on a more individual level. My favorite disruption story will probably always be how Sam Walton took on Kmart, even though Walmart began as the distant underdog.

Over time, Everyday Savings in ‘one horse towns’ became the apex predator of the Blue Light Special. Nom nom.

Sam Walton wasn’t going to shy from a fight. The odds against him were only hurdles, ones that thorough research would help him leap. A 1992 Fortune article quoted him:

“Kmart had interested me ever since the first store went up in 1962. I was in their stores constantly because they were the laboratory, and better than we were. I spent a heck of a lot of time wandering through their stores talking to their people and trying to figure out how they did things. I’ve probably been in more Kmarts than anybody in the country. For a long time I had been itching to try our luck against them…”

While Walton’s adversarial nature was … intense… even curiosity with pure intentions can annoy leaders or peers who prefer their authority unquestioned.

When I worked retail during college, my manager dinged my annual review score because I was prone to “asking too many questions.”

“You don’t always have to know why something is done, you just have to do it.” He said.

The irony was that, in the same review, I was praised for always finding a creative solution to our most challenging customer satisfaction issues. “You know the return system better than anyone.”

My manager didn’t understand that trying to understand every facet of a system and the ability to find new paths to a solution are cause and effect.

I didn’t get a raise that year.

But I did co-found a company.

So while always questioning the status quo might not win you friends, it can win you market share.

Of course, there’s another route to finding new solutions.

“Could she be more lazy?”

In 1947 the Chrysler Corporation testified in Congress. In the public record, you can read that Senator Ellender (D-LA) followed up on something odd that Mr. Bleicher, the Chrysler executive, had said:

Senator: “You say you would put a lazy man on a job to find an easy way to do it. Why would you say a lazy man rather than a hard worker?”

Mr. Bleicher: “Because the lazy man will find an easy way to do it. He may not do much, but he will find an easy way to do it.”

[the record reflects that Congress laughed]

Since that time the quote has been made pithier and is falsely attributed to Henry Ford or Bill Gates: “I will always choose a lazy man to do a hard job because a lazy man will find an easy way to do it.”

“This just in?—?it seems the first place winner of the 2022 Coca-cola 600 race, Clown Car Motorsports, might be disqualified for cheating. Their driver was heard shouting ‘I’m thinking outside of the box–shortcuts are just innovation!’”

And while that might sound silly at first, it cuts to the heart of innovation: find a solution to a real problem, even if no one realizes they have a problem at all.

In the academic discussion of innovation and entrepreneurship, Eric Von Hippel of MIT was one of the first to directly address how tacit knowledge—the things people within a situation simply know and might not think to convey, like that speeding up a little might help you balance a bike around a curve—can reveal a sticky problem: a problem that few can see, because it relies on first-hand knowledge to even identify that there might be a better solution.

The wonderful thing about using your tacit knowledge to cut corners is that it’s not just lazy—it’s also innovation.

In reality, successful creative entrepreneurs are the opposite of lazy. But they still can be perceived that way, since they’re always asking: “is there an easier way to do this?”

What corners could you cut in your regular work without sacrificing quality?

“They’re just a screw-up!”

Failure can seem like the end of the world. And when you start stringing failure after failure together, it makes you want to roll into a blanket-burrito of embarrassment with your favorite ice cream and never take another chance again.

But failure–or more accurately, being able to quickly bounce back from failure–is also a skill.

Jack Ma, the founder of the now-maybe-in-limbo Ant Group, often talks about his failures prior to founding Alibaba.

He once applied for an hourly job at KFC. 24 people interviewed and KFC hired them all—except for Ma.

However, Ma is more famous for his persistence. His application to Harvard was rejected 10 different semesters. Maybe he’d still be applying today if his company hadn’t taken off.

Risky business

When FedEx was pushed to the verge of bankruptcy during the 1970’s energy crisis, founder Fred Smith knew he had $5,000 left in the bank and no way to meet the next month’s payroll.

So he took a risky, foolhardy, and likely outright stupid gamble—quite literally. On the way back from a failed pitch for more financing, Smith stopped in Vegas, withdrew that last $5,000, and hit the blackjack tables.***

When he stopped playing, Smith was able to put $27,000 back in the bank. It wasn’t enough to run FedEx for long—but it allowed him to pay everyone until he raised another $11 million dollars. The company went public two years later and remains a powerhouse.

***Don’t try this at home, my friends.

Still, if Smith had been unlucky that night, he would have faced serious repercussions. For most people, it would have been an irrational decision. But to Smith?

“I was very committed to the people that had signed on with me, and if we were going to go down, we were going to go down with a fight.”

— Smith on his gamble.

Entrepreneurs have to take rejection in stride and learn to use failure as a lesson.

Move on from embarrassment quickly

Countless entrepreneurs have cited one Japanese kotozawa as inspiration: fall seven times, get back up eight.

That is certainly a good motto, but I think Khosla’s advice is most comforting when you’re feeling embarrassment.

Vinod Khosla, founder of Sun Microsystems, has asked audiences if they’ve ever heard of The Data Dump.

His question is usually met with the sound of crickets chirping. But when he asks who’s heard of Sun Microsystems, nearly everyone in the room puts their hand in the air.

The Data Dump was Khosla’s previous (and failed) startup. He now says:

“Nobody remembers failures.

Success matters. Failure is inconsequential.

Yet what I hear most people do is not do things because they fear failure.

Most people are limited by what they think they can do, not what they can do.”

So stop fearing rejection.

Okay, that’s easier said than done. And Mark has warned us in the past about the dangers of making failure a fetish.

But if you can’t make yourself apply for a job despite meeting 95% of the qualifications, or you keep doing quizzes to diagnose your imposter syndrome, you likely would benefit from failing more often. So what steps can you take to work toward overcoming the fear and embarrassment of rejection?

One way is to begin pursuing it.

Collecting rejection to overcome the embarrassment

I, like Jia Jiang and many others, once undertook a Rejection Challenge. My remixed goal was to receive 100 official journal article, job, or opportunity rejections in 2018. And to my delight, I failed. By mid-year I was too busy with new and exciting opportunities to actually complete my challenge. #goodproblems

If you’d like to read more, this is my summation, but the tl;dr is: push yourself to do things you think are just beyond your capability, and you’ll be surprised at how much you grow.

So while it’s still a good idea to do a little soul-searching when called a lazy, argumentative, attention-seeking reject, there is a chance that you’re just on the wrong career path. Your annual review might be punishing you for the very traits that will make you a great creative.

So remember the mic drop from Steve Jobs’ Standford address:

“Stay hungry. Stay foolish.”

Kiki Schirr is a freelance marketer, writer, and former founder who enjoys new technologies. She believes success is a product of luck, tenacity, and chutzpah. You can email Kiki Schirr at her full name without spaces at Gmail. Just remember that she responds faster on Twitter.

Illustrations by the author. 

Top photo is from a North Face video called “Question Madness.”

The post Is embarrassment your entrepreneurial secret weapon? appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.

Fun fact: Bloomberg keeps a “wealth index” of the 100 richest people in the world. Ten of those individuals had no apparent headstart in life — they were born into poverty and didn’t have a college education. In my book Cumulative Advantage, I describe how all 10 of them took the same path to success. Indeed, it is a prescription for how we should all look at strategy and increasing our odds of success today.

What I discovered is that simply having a good idea is not enough to break through. Let’s explore this today and see what actions can increase your odds of success.

The seam

Let’s begin with an interesting new take on strategy.

In my book, I describe a “seam” as a fracture in the status quo. This could be any shift in demographics, politics, technology, taste, culture, or consumer habits that creates un-served or under-served customer needs.

Strategy today requires that we apply our ideas and talents to an immediate opportunity — a seam. Strategy isn’t about a 250-page report and a five-year plan like it was in the 1990s. It’s about bursting through that seam with full force in a clear moment of opportunity.

This is exactly what those 10 mega-billionaires did. Against all odds, they applied an idea they had to an emerging trend, burst through with speed, and made smart decisions to increase that initial momentum.

Once you become aware of this pattern, you’ll see it everywhere. Clubhouse is a great example.

What shift occurred for Clubhouse? Through the pandemic, millions of people have been in a lengthy period of isolation. People are bored and they miss talking to people. We also have a high unemployment rate so people have a lot of time on their hands!

Would Clubhouse have been a hit in 2019? Nobody can say for sure, but it is undeniable that the seam burst wide open for them at this particular moment in time, and now competitors like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn are chasing them for social audio dominance.

Like our billionaire friends, the odds of success for Clubhouse have been significantly influenced by timing. That is the opportunity and enigma of strategy for you and me in the modern age.

Timing is everything

Bill Gross

In a famous TED talk, entrepreneur Bill Gross provided an analysis of hundreds of startups and why they succeeded. The primary cause for an idea taking off as a successful business? Timing: 42 percent of the successes were dependent on the right timing compared to 32 percent for execution and 28 percent for the uniqueness of the idea.

If you’re obsessed with an idea, it can be hard to accept that something so mysterious as timing can make or break you. Swing too early or too late and you risk missing the seam.

Economist Clayton Christianson called this The Innovator’s Dilemma. Even successful companies often fail with new ideas because markets that never existed can’t be easily analyzed.

If the timing of an idea is so important to increase odds of success, is there anything we can do to nudge fortune our way, or are we resigned to accept the certainty of uncertainty?

The good news!

Let’s say you had an entrepreneurial idea 30 years ago. How would you test a seam?

You probably had to actually make something. That required space, equipment, technical know-how, and financing. It was almost impossible to judge any sort of product demand without an actual launch. The hurdles were enormous!

Today, it’s easy to test and prototype all kinds of products — even physical goods — and then test-market them through surveys and demonstrations on the web.

A second big idea — we are in an unparalleled period of opening seams. The pandemic has been sad and tragic. But it has also upended people’s lives in millions of ways and created the most business opportunities in human history. We are reinventing how we learn, work, teach, connect, work out, and entertain ourselves. Even our relationship with food, fashion, and fun is being renegotiated. There are seams opening everywhere. The entire world is a fracture in the status quo!

Improving your odds of success

Although we are in this unprecedented tidal wave of opportunity, that doesn’t mean there isn’t risk. We can always count on the certainty of uncertainty.

One of the most fun things I do is help entrepreneurs develop their new business ideas — anybody can sign up for an hour of my time. After hundreds of these sessions, I see distinct patterns.

Here are three things I help people think through that can nudge the odds of success in their favor:

1. Is your idea worthy of a customer?

I’ve done hundreds of personal consulting sessions over the years, and a common issue I encounter is an entrepreneur pursuing an idea that solves no obvious problem. But they love the idea so much they can’t see the plain truth. They don’t even want to hear the truth. Any naysayer is simply an unwelcome “hater.”

Blind belief in an idea can quickly destroy a project.

Recently, I had a conversation with a man who had been pushing his idea for 12 years — with zero progress. The world is telling him “no” but he’s not listening because he’s too in love with his idea. He’s not considering the true needs of the customer.

Every year (in normal times) I attend the gigantic SXSW conference. It’s an annual gathering of global thought leaders and a launchpad for the hottest new ideas.

In 2012, the king of the conference was an app called Highlight. This was app was a little scary … yet intriguing. It tracked users’ whereabouts to show them profiles of people nearby with similar interests or shared connections. For that week in Austin, Texas, everyone wanted to try it. Phones buzzed and buzzed with Highlight notifications. But within a few months the app was deemed too creepy to go mainstream and had flatlined.

This app was created by Paul Davison. Is that name familiar? He’s also the founder of Clubhouse.

By listening to the world and giving up on Highlight when the world said “no,” he lived to fight another day. Successful entrepreneurs are not driven by pursuing risk, they’re driven by pursuing opportunity.

2. Is your idea worthy of battle?

Davison

What do you think Davison’s calendar at Clubhouse looks like these days?

• Clubhouse is facing a flurry of well-financed new competitors (including Facebook!). Fight them off!
• They need to develop an Android version as soon as possible.
• They have to scale rapidly to meet the exploding customer demand. This means investment in new facilities and human resources.
• Is it time for another round of funding? Are our current investors happy?

This list could go on and on. Davison needs to make a series of momentous decisions right now to keep his momentum going and dominate his seam.

This probably means he has no personal life right now. He is in a time-sensitive battle and if he wins the next year, he could go down in history as a great tech founder. Nobody will remember Highlight! But that only comes with a dedication to the battle.

Every successful founder goes through a period of battle at some point. Is your idea worth the fight?

3. Is it worthy of the truth?

In many cases, you may never know if the seam is ready until you try it. That’s OK. In many cases the risk is low, so go for it!

But there is also no excuse to not collect enough information through research to give increase your odds of success. I know that seems obvious, but you would be surprised how many people try to start businesses when it’s already apparent that a seam is going in the opposite direction!

Entrepreneurs either knowingly or unknowingly can become blind to the obvious truth.

The beauty of our Information Age is that there is data on almost everything. You can bet that Paul Davison has a dashboard he’s using to assess the truth of his market on a daily basis. Probably an hourly basis.

Increasing your odds of success

All the ideas I’ve covered today are expounded upon in Cumulative Advantage: How to Build Momentum for Your Ideas, Business, and Life Against All Odds, so if this is a relevant topic, I’d encourage you to get the book (cheap!) and do a deeper dive.

Having a great idea does not begin an inevitable march toward success. It is the pursuit of that idea and applying it to a relevant, current human need — your seam — that starts your journey toward momentum and success.

Mark Schaefer is the executive director of Schaefer Marketing Solutions. He is the author of several best-selling digital marketing books and is an acclaimed keynote speaker, college educator, and business consultant.  The Marketing Companion podcast is among the top business podcasts in the world. Contact Mark to have him speak to your company event or conference soon.

Follow Mark on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram.

Illustration courtesy Unsplash.com

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I recently attended (virtually) the Drucker Global Forum and was inspired by a talk from Margaret Heffernan, a professor at the University of Bath. She said that marketing innovators should act like artists.

I loved this idea and wanted to share it with you. Here is what she said:

“What does an artist do? They notice, they investigate, they seek to understand what’s really going on in the world. Then they ask themselves this question constantly – ‘what can we make of it?’

“How can we make something that’s really positive, that’s relevant that speaks to people, that is meaningful and has value? They have a fearless imagination and endless capacity to experiment. They change before they have to. They keep moving. And they recognize that they often fail.”

That resonated with me!

She also said that leaders today also need to see themselves as doctors. Businesses can’t survive when the country isn’t healthy (referring to a Peter Drucker quote). This is why corporate social responsibility is integrated into business and marketing so tightly. If we don’t contribute to the health of society, our businesses won’t be successful in the long-term.

If you love these ideas, you’ll love our new Marketing Companion podcast episode. Brooke Sellas and I discuss this concept of the marketer as artist, why Mark is suffering from lawn porn (no joke!), why L’Oreal’s online make-up filters are about to change meetings forever (what an idea!), why marketing needs some marketing, and the reason Ryan Reynolds might be marketing’s keenest mind right now.

So much goodness in one 30-minute podcast episode. You can’t miss this. Just click here to listen!

Click on this link to listen to Episode 207

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Many thanks to our friend Scott Monty for the awesome show intro. Be sure to check out his amazing newsletter Timeless and Timely.

Tim Washer is contributing creative direction to the show and he’s has worked for Conan O’Brien, John Oliver, among others. He helps corporations build more creative cultures.

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The post Why marketing innovators should act like artists appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.