Most people think that entrepreneurs think of a vision first, and then figure out the correct strategy to make it happen. This is something that’s very hard to accomplish, and very few are able to actually make it happen this way.

But a far more common approach seems to be the one where you don’t start with a vision, you just start with a small, approachable problem.

Something that doesn’t need a lot of imagination. Something you can cleary visualize from start to finish.

Vision is something that you define as you go along in these cases.

NVIDIA, everyone’s favourite company this year, is now broadly in the news for being the company that will make AI alive, accessible, and available. The chips it manufactures are the core layer of infrastructure needed to make the AI run.

But it didn’t start with a grand AI vision in mind. It started, in 1993, as a way to make computer graphics easier. 2007 is when they started investing in AI as a usecase.

Facebook didn’t start with the vision of connecting people. It started as just an online directory of college students. In fact, Zuck did not plan to work on the site once it was released, and expected the traffic to go down.

Only when the company started getting bigger did the vision crystallize.

Microsoft, famous for the “Computer on every desk” vision, did not start with that vision in mind. In fact, their name upon founding was “Micro-soft” (with the hyphen).

They started by building a BASIC interpreter for Altair 8800.

There are many other big and small successful companies that did not start with a vision in mind, but rather formed the vision later, once they found what they’re actually doing.

So, don’t hold back because of a lack of vision, just pick a customer problem and start by solving it.

Fancy things like mission and vision come later.

Most people think that entrepreneurs think of a vision first, and then figure out the correct strategy to make it happen. This is something that’s very hard to accomplish, and very few are able to actually make it happen this way.

But a far more common approach seems to be the one where you don’t start with a vision, you just start with a small, approachable problem.

Something that doesn’t need a lot of imagination. Something you can cleary visualize from start to finish.

Vision is something that you define as you go along in these cases.

NVIDIA, everyone’s favourite company this year, is now broadly in the news for being the company that will make AI alive, accessible, and available. The chips it manufactures are the core layer of infrastructure needed to make the AI run.

But it didn’t start with a grand AI vision in mind. It started, in 1993, as a way to make computer graphics easier. 2007 is when they started investing in AI as a usecase.

Facebook didn’t start with the vision of connecting people. It started as just an online directory of college students. In fact, Zuck did not plan to work on the site once it was released, and expected the traffic to go down.

Only when the company started getting bigger did the vision crystallize.

Microsoft, famous for the “Computer on every desk” vision, did not start with that vision in mind. In fact, their name upon founding was “Micro-soft” (with the hyphen).

They started by building a BASIC interpreter for Altair 8800.

There are many other big and small successful companies that did not start with a vision in mind, but rather formed the vision later, once they found what they’re actually doing.

So, don’t hold back because of a lack of vision, just pick a customer problem and start by solving it.

Fancy things like mission and vision come later.