Cool ideas for new businesses are a dime a dozen. That — plus all the new tech enablers such as instant websites and e-commerce platforms — makes it deceptively easy to start up a new venture. The bigger challenge is to start up a big venture that just happens to be small at first.
Fortunately, real entrepreneurs are growth-obsessed: they cringe when you call them "small." In fact, I don't think you can call something entrepreneurship unless it is driven by big vision, big aspiration, and a burning desire and ability to grow — that is a key message in my new book, Worthless, Impossible and Stupid (due out in July). In the book, I tell the stories of scale-up entrepreneurs from around the world, and how they beat the odds to make a mark on their markets.