Think big, start small and learn fast.

By Barbara Zelu

While most of us complain about non availability of capital for our start ups, unyielding governments to the cause of the private sector and unconducive business environment among others.

Most of these complains stem from the fact that, a greater proportion of us (young entrepreneurs) are not willing to start small. We want our start ups to be comparable to already established corporations which is impossible.

There are thousand and one examples of companies that thought big but started small. A vivid example is Amazon. Jeff Bezos started amazon by selling primarily books from his garage ,but now amazon sells everything from shoes to clothes to furniture and much more. Amazon is an epitome of the mantra think big , start small and learn fast and the reward is unimaginable. Today Jeff Bezos is one of the richest men in the world.

Another example is google, google came out of nowhere but within two decades was able to build a business fortune of about $58 billion by 2013. According to Susan Wojcicki the CEO of Youtube in a post from Google’s Think Insights explains that their growth process started with the company’s Eight Pillars of innovation. One of which is think big act small.

Wojcicki writes:

“No matter how ambitious the plan, you have to roll up your sleeves and start somewhere. Google Books, which has brought the content of millions of books online, was an idea that our Founder, Larry Page, had for a long time. People thought it was too crazy even to try, but he went ahead and bought a scanner and hooked it up in his office. He began scanning pages, timed how long it took with a metronome, ran the numbers and realized it would be possible to bring the world’s books online. Today, our Book Search index contains over 10 million books.”

Which means no matter how ambitious or humungous the vision is you’ve to chop it of piece by piece and one step at a time. And with consistent efforts towards the vision you’re sure to achieve and even surpass your expectation. Don’t wait for everything to be perfect before you start , because there’s no such thing as perfect. Start where you are and work towards the big picture by learning and acting fast. And if Amazon and google can , then you can also. The business you are hesitating to start may be the next big thing the world would witness.

Start small and start now !

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