If The Shoe Fits: Errors Inherent in Assumptions
by Miki Saxon
A Friday series exploring Startups and the people who make them go. Read all If the Shoe Fits posts here.
If you were sitting in Starbucks and heard the following from a man and a woman you couldn’t see, what would your reaction be?
If we can get every business in the world to adopt a global problem, get slightly smaller businesses to adopt a national problem, get smaller businesses still to adopt local problems, then we can get on top of pretty well every problem in the world.
Snicker at their naiveté? Wonder how they would monetize the idea? Drool a bit over the enormous trove of data they would have? Maybe give some thought on how you could get into the action?
Not that you would admit those thoughts in public.
But in the end, you would probably just shrug and write them off as a couple of idealistic dreamers who were unlikely to get anywhere with ideas like that.
Why?
Because they didn’t sound as if they had the passion, the drive, the pure grit, to pull off a truly world-changing idea.
All these scenarios are predicated on the assumption that the people talking were just people.
Would the fact that you were eavesdropping on Richard Branson and his daughter, Holly, cause you to change your assumptions?
Probably.
(Click to read more about Branson.)
Image credit: HikingArtist
