Darwin’s Theory on Entrepreneurship is Pure Genius

Greatest Business and Wealth Lessons from Charles Darwin

The silicon valley is synonymous with the word startup. It is the land of firsts and Evolution. Its impact breaches all borders, and it ends up impacting people from all provinces. Among others, there is one bizarre trend called “pivoting”. Apparently, it’s voguish out there. This institution of thought means that you might have the most horrendous and crap-tastic idea, but with ample endurance and metamorphosis, you shall eventually succeed.

How pivoting works?

Recall your physics class; most of the earth and the human body is carbon, and yet there are those million-dollar diamonds, after all, that is just compressed C. The journey of this element started as a dirty piece of gavel, but someone believed that they could make it into something worth a diamond. Diamonds are a perfect example of genius marketing, perseverance and the saga of rags to riches.

I have full faith in humans capacity to complete and resist all shocks; we have been doing so since the beginning of time; remember when we were dying of fever. Still, we found a way out of it; our body made a mechanism to fight, so why can’t our business and beliefs do the same. (although you might need some Medicine )

Some people argue that starting an endeavour with the pure intention of monetary benefit or fame will not take you anywhere.

Don’t listen to those people; if we did so, 99% of us would lose our jobs; the truth is that most of us don’t have the luxury to have a pure purpose without caring about food and shelter. Moreover, do you really think Mark Zuckerberg’s notion behind starting Facebook was “bring the community together “?

There is plenty that goes into Keeping an idea alive and then building upon it. A few years ago, my idea was to become financially independent in a male-dominated household. The goal was simple, and due to it, I initiated a journey to harnesses my potentials and tap into multiple avenues.

Needless to say, both I and my business have changed drastically over the years. But, more than pivoting, I think we’ve evolved.

What Darwin Suggests to Entrepreneurs?

There is no big bang moment; it’s just a slow evolution.

One never started an enterprise that skyrocketed in a day, no matter who you are and where you come from. A person with billion dollars in a trust fund or another person living a life of debt will hardly see overnight success. One might lose less sleep or have a comparatively easy journey, but it will not wholly determine the faith of your venture.

Let’s take this platform as an example; it’s the brainchild of Ev Williams. He is the co-founder of Twitter; Twitter had a controversial but one of the most successful runs year after year. Yet even after all that experience, financial backing and tools, Medium took its own time and turns to evolve and come into own itself.

Test constantly and recapitulate based on actual data, not opinions

When you launch a product or service, you must act very closely with your customers. Having a well-operated channel of feedback, both manual and AI operated, is a necessity, and so is altering and testing new ideas — Like how different species mutate.

The real customer derived data is king, and instead of spending dollars on creating a team to prepare PPT presentations based on assumptions — you must get your hands dirty in real-world problems and not glass chambers.

Species evolve because they are introduced to variants that improve rates of survival. ( what does kills you make you stronger)

Business evolution is painful, but it’s necessary

If you or your business bomb and crashed to the floor each time, you need to recollect Daddy Darwin’s darling words and think about the process of Evolution. If you convince yourself with this theory and believe that change is the only constant, you will indeed thrive and never look back. Or you can always go the DoDo birds lane — it’s never too late for that either.

“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.” — Charles Darwin

Evolution is ugly and uncomfortable. We like what we like and get used to it ( I wear the same Worn out T-shirt every day, and it’s both a choice and a habit, or maybe I am just gross and lazy ), Yet with Each project, many things die along the way, but we need to forward and become familiar with new.

The first to get sacrificed is the self-regard and snobbery one has before starting a real business, the pride that tells you “if you build it, then it will come”. This pride is very, very deceptive because, in reality, it should read, “if you build it and tweak it 20 times and get a lot of feedback, it might come”.

There are numerous times when you think you’re not going to make it, and there are just as many times when you feel you’ve found the perfect thing and no one buys it.

Business evolution is all about being eager to change when it’s necessary to do so. Very few successful businesses are the same today as they were when they started. I would challenge you to find one whose core offering hasn’t evolved consistently since the beginning.

Launch early with less

Humans did not come as what we are today. In fact, some of the first few organisms on earth were far from complex systems of functions, hence starting simple is okay, and you can become a billionaire by delivering food or creating a cab service, but only if you get to the market fast and have a zest of fight in you.

Move fast, but not too fast and learn from delinquencies

In nature, there are two types of species — those that mutate too slowly and those which mutate very quickly, and in the end, both of them die. In today’s time, we have an abundance of everything, and change happens at lightning speed; we need to stay relevant to times and not far ahead of it for anyone to accept or adapt to us.

Over time, trillions of organisms have been unsuccessful to live past their challenge, and Evolution kills them naturally — it’s typical for species to even die off entirely. And hence you need to innovate, or your product will die.

Collaboration is the further

In the words of the man himself-

“In the long history of humankind (and animal kind, too), those who learned to collaborate and improvise most effectively have prevailed.”— Charles Darwin

No startup is an island Strive together thrive together Period.

The secret sauce

I think a mildly intelligent person can create a killer business if they can latch onto and embody these characteristics:

Purpose.

Persistence.

The ability to evolve.

In essence, a startup has to be successful in making sure they don’t die (and die young). They’ll generally succeed if they can do this because everything else is more manageable than going down in flames.

Persistence is the key to not dying. Persistence is a universal concept, and that is always a component of success. The persistence that gets the scummy guy laid at the bar is the same persistence that opens doors for the non-profit no one thought could make it.

The purpose is simply knowing where you’re going. I was having lunch with a friend the other day, and as we munched on Fries, we tried to figure out what was the one thing that all happy people have in common finally, we realized it was the purpose. Every happy person is working towards a specific goal.

Whether the purpose is raising your kids and building a family, featuring on Forbes 30 under 30 or building a 9999 person Company. Your goal is the north star that guides the persistent mind.

A successful business or person adapts to change quickly and fluidly. They can’t be stubborn when it comes to forces that are larger than themselves (think the stock market or Bitcoin crashing) and try to hold their ground — instead, they must evaluate what their purpose is, fortify their persistence and find a path that allows them to press on even in the face of impossible odds.

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