February 2015One of the most valuable exercises you can try if you want tounderstand startups is to look at the most successful companies andexplain why they were not as lame as they seemed when they firstlaunched. Because they practically all seemed lame at first. Notjust small, lame. Not just the first step up a big mountain. Morelike the first step into a swamp.A Basic interpreter for the Altair? How could that ever grow intoa giant company? People sleeping on airbeds in strangers' apartments?A web site for college students to stalk one another? A wimpylittle single-board computer for hobbyists that used a TV as amonitor? A new search engine, when there were already about 10,and they were all trying to de-emphasize search? These ideas didn'tjust seem small. They seemed wrong. They were the kind of ideasyou could not merely ignore, but ridicule.Often the founders themselves didn't know why their ideas werepromising. They were attracted to these ideas by instinct, becausethey were living in the future andthey sensed that something was missing. But they could not haveput into words exactly how their ugly ducklings were going to growinto big, beautiful swans.Most people's first impulse when they hear about a lame-soundingnew startup idea is to make fun of it. Even a lot of people whoshould know better.When I encounter a startup with a lame-sounding idea, I ask "WhatMicrosoft is this the Altair Basic of?" Now it's a puzzle, and theburden is on me to solve it. Sometimes I can't think of an answer,especially when the idea is a made-up one. But it's remarkable howoften there does turn out to be an answer. Often it's one thefounders themselves hadn't seen yet.Intriguingly, there are sometimes multiple answers. I talked to astartup a few days ago that could grow into 3 distinct Microsofts.They'd probably vary in size by orders of magnitude. But you cannever predict how big a Microsoft is going to be, so in cases likethat I encourage founders to follow whichever path is most immediatelyexciting to them. Their instincts got them this far. Why stop now?
