A few weeks ago I applied for a grant from the Columbia Undergraduate Scholars Program to cover my living expenses as I execute a “practicum in applied entrepreneurship” over the course of the summer. Thankfully, my grant application was accepted.
When I wrote the grant application, the plan was to work on Celeb.ly, a service that would provide fans the opportunity to participate in live video chats with their favorite celebrities. After receiving the grant, however, this service began to look less and less appealing to me, mainly because I have very little personal interest in chatting with celebrities. Even though it could be a successful company after many hours of hard work, I lack the passion necessary to put in the necessary labor and devotion.
On Monday, I met with professor Yechiam Yemini (a.k.a YY), a successful entrepreneur at Columbia who has agreed to mentor me this summer as I found the startup. We discussed, among other things, fruitful methods of generating startup ideas. In response to my question of whether I should seek unmet needs in businesses, he advised that I should instead look for potential new uses of recent technology research.
Since that meeting on Monday, despite numerous opportunities to look for commercializable academic technology research, I have hardly done any such searching. Why? In short, it is too broad of a task. The breadth of the task makes the task seem insurmountable, a procrastination-inducing prospect.
I have learned a few things about myself over the years, and one of them is that I can allow myself to become paralyzed if I wait for the “perfect” opportunity before starting a job, internship, or other personal endeavor.
We should forget about small efficiencies, say about 97% of the time: premature optimization is the root of all evil.
Donald Knuth
This quote is usually used in the context of constructing computer software, but it also applies in the context of my summer’s activities. Rather than sitting around researching technologies that could be commercialized, I have decided to go with an idea I have considered extensively earlier: buying and selling websites. Although this is less “startup-ey” than other options, I will have the opportunity to create a system that removes me from the most labor-intensive parts of the process, thereby generating value by orchestrating the efforts of others.
I’ll post again with more details on buying and selling websites. Please share your comments below.
