From Medium.
For me it was education. I had ideas. That wasn’t enough.
I worked in and around higher education for the better part of a decade and it confirmed and strengthened the belief I developed during my own college experience: the whole system is a wasteful mess.
Hardly anyone involved enjoys it. Students and professors complain about each other. Both are happy when class is cancelled. Employers don’t think grads know what they need to know, grads don’t feel ready to embark on careers, and everyone is spending everyone else’s money with unknown results and little accountability.
“I see opportunity”
I openly talked about the problems of credential inflation, student frustration, artificially stimulated supply via tax dollars in myriad forms, artificially stimulated demand via licensure requirements and restrictions on employers using other means to test competence. I wrote and discussed the dangers of the cultural narrative that guilts, shames, and scares everyone into buying a multi-thousand dollar product that they don’t much enjoy and don’t know what to do with.
I saw the emergence of MOOC’s and the decline of informational gatekeepers. I heard business owners say they don’t care about degrees anymore. I imagined far more efficient, customer-centric, accountable, exciting, and effective ways of providing education, experience, confidence, skills, and a network to young people. In short, I had ideas.
The problem with ideas is that they’re almost costless. I could broadcast my ideas and others could broadcast theirs, and ideas people can lock in an endless tussle over whose are better. Who cares? Nobody wins when it’s all talk. It hit me one exciting, frightening day. If I’m really correct about the problems with higher ed, and if my ideal alternative is as valuable as I think it is, I need to put my money where my mind is. I need to build it. So I did.
Make it real
I created a company that puts smart, hard-working young people in great businesses while they are engaging in a rigorous educational experience complete with tech skills, professional development basics, liberal arts, coaching, and self-guided projects that demonstrate tangible value.
It was the scariest thing I’ve ever done.
Suddenly, I went from the guy with opinions and ideas about education, entrepreneurship, and career to the guy who’s going to succeed or fail based on those ideas. I learned that the only thing critics love more than ideas to disagree with are physical manifestations of those ideas. But once I launched Praxis, everything became clearer. I was playing a new game. I was no longer worried about the critics, I was interested in my customers.
Have something to lose
This change in focus is the healthiest thing in the world. Economist Nassim Taleb talks about the concept of “skin in the game”, and every entrepreneur knows exactly what he means. Nothing sharpens your focus and clarifies your thought like having something on the line besides just the pride of being right. Nothing helps you gain valuable information from those who disagree like the need to succeed in the development and deployment of an idea.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m an ideas person. Philosophizing is my favorite pastime. But the best philosophers are those who don’t limit themselves to thought experiments, but also put their ideas through field experiments. It’s not enough to have ideas that seem superior in mental models. The real impact comes from the thinkers who take the next step and incorporate their vision.
Entrepreneurship is philosophy in action.
Use the value-creation test
A good exercise is to attempt to turn every idea into a business model. Think people eat too many carbs and they’d be happier and healthier on your preferred diet? If you’re right, that’s value sitting on the table. Can you create that value for others and measure it in revenue? Think people watch too much TV? What need are they trying to meet and what other services might meet it better? Can you build it? Can you sell it?
I am not claiming that speculation without action is worthless. All action starts in the imagination. I am saying that every idea can be sharpened by forcing yourself to put it into some kind of model that creates value. Not every idea is monetizable, and that’s OK. But neither is monetization some kind of lower life form or dirty word. It’s nothing more than a representation of the value your idea creates for people. The practice of putting theories into business models will reveal weaknesses in the idea, or demonstrate that it’s so good you can’t wait to act on it.
Don’t get stuck talking
There are limitless entrepreneurial opportunities, and today it’s easier and cheaper than ever to turn an idea into a business. But there is also infinite information and no shortage of platforms with which to discuss ideas. This presents a challenge to big thinkers and entices many of us to stay forever in the world of speculation, avoiding implementation.
If you want to change the world and your own life, you can’t stop at ideas. The transformation of those ideas into something that receives feedback from the market is the hardest, yet most worthwhile journey I can think of. Embrace it.