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Entrepreneurs: To Change the World

by Miki Saxon

www.flickr.com/photos/cambodia4kidsorg/3054804054/As you might imagine, I do a lot of reading about innovation, new products and startups.

I have to say that too many are mind-numbingly boring and irrelevant when considered in the long-term—or even the shorter-term.

Whether it’s the (supposedly) hottest in Silicon Valley or Silicon Alley (AKA NYC) how many do you think will matter three or four years from now, let alone in a decade or more?

Many of them sport pedigrees from Tech Stars, Founders Fund, 500 Startups and Y Combinator, which only goes to show that, as with education, graduating from a top-ranked institution doesn’t assure meaningful success. (Be sure to read the comments and you’ll see my disdain is shared by many.)

Now compare them with the startups incubated, nurtured and seeded by Rock Health and Fledge.

Rock Health looks for “Big ideas executed by smart and driven entrepreneurs, to really move the needle in healthcare.  Ideas should be addressing large problems in the system, with a business model that is sustainable and scalable.”

Fledge looks for “…companies looking to address the needs of increasingly health, environment and sustainability-conscious consumers in a variety of ways.”

Granted the ideas on Fledge are hyper-local and may not  be world-changing at first glance, but if locally applicable iterations spread across the globe then world-changing they would be.

I’m also fully aware that many of the startups I shrug off will make money and be acquired, but it’s doubtful they will make history—even as a footnote.

If you plan/want to found a company why not look for a real need as opposed to a faux one and develop a product or service to address it; the same thing applies when choosing a place to work.

That’s how you change the world.

And just for fun take a look at products you couldn’t live without—from penicillin to Post-its to pacemakers—that all came about because of mistakes, accidents and carelessness that didn’t go unnoticed.

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Flickr image credit: cambodia4kidsorg

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