Ryan Carson for Signal vs. Noise:
Every successful business has a dirty little secret: They didn’t know if they were going to be successful when they started. They probably did their homework, researched the market and had a bit of experience. But there were no guarantees
I just finished a book about Google called The Search, by John Battelle. What I learned from the book is that it’s easy to look at a company like Google and say “Larry and Sergey are so impressive. They had a vision to change the world and they did it. I could never be like that.”
The truth is, they had no idea if they were going to succeed when they started. What if Larry had said to Sergey, “Hmmm, I don’t know Sergey. Surely somebody has already figured out this search thing – and they probably know what they’re doing! We’re just a couple of college kids so let’s just play it safe and get good jobs at a stable company.”
This is all very similar to when you realise that your parents don’t know everything. All the sudden it hits you that there are no black and white rules and that you’ve got to start figuring things out for yourself. Starting a company is exactly the same. All those people and businesses that you look up to and respect – they’re just like you. They don’t have some special magic expertise that helps them make good decisions – they have to figure it out for themselves and hope they make the right call.
Colorado born, Ryan has lived in the UK for six years. During that time he worked as a web developer before founding Carson Systems in early 2004.
