Re-Startup Cyprus

This is a WAKE UP call. To all the passionate young entrepreneurs in Cyprus. Your country needs you, your people need you, your families need you. You are the future of this island. You are also the present of this island. Don't be afraid to take the risks you need to take. From far away in San Francisco, I'll try to provide any help possible. Get inspired...

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Less Procrastination. More action.

[fastcompany]

It’s the person who can continually get up after every failed attempt and learn something from their mistakes. They can move forward.

Jason Sosa, founder of IMRSV, one of Time.com’s 10 startups to watch in 2013, shares his thoughts on what makes a person successful. 

IMRSV is the company behind Cara, a software that allows developers to turn any webcam into a real-time video analytics sensor. 

(via fastcompany)

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Failure is only the opportunity to begin again, only this time more wisely...

Henry Ford

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No limits. No boundaries. 

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Don't worry about failure, you only have to be right once...

Drew Houston, Dropbox

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Take the risk. It's now or never.

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"The road to success for an entrepreneur is filled with problems that need to be solved. Or are they just solutions disguised as obstacles?"

On an island like Cyprus, people should be chilling by the beach all year round having no problems or worries at all. One might think.

However, reality is far from this description. Because of the island's troubled history, people see problems everywhere. And more specifically, entrepreneurial minds in Cyprus see even more problems closing down on them.

Young people with great vision that could become great leaders in the business world are discouraged by the pessimistic mentality that prevails on the island. Cyprus, being a small island, gives the impression to a lot of people that the things you can do and the dreams you can have there should be small and limited by boundaries. Young people in Cyprus feel that there are so many problems involved with starting a business and that the biggest problem is that 'you cannot do something big in Cyprus'. 

But I see it in a totally different way. The size and the amount of people on the island is not a problem. It is a huge opportunity. To make my point let's go through an example. Pandora, the online music service mainly operates in the US. Now some might think that operating in the US is a great thing because it is a huge market and there exists great potential to scale up. However, do you know what is going to happen to Pandora this fall when iTunes Radio is going to be released by Apple? Well I am no fortune teller but I know that the future of Pandora is not looking that good. 

The point here is that the market size of Cyprus is a great opportunity because with very little innovation you can capture a whole market, and there are no big corporations (i.e. Apple) to hit you once you are successful. In addition to that, the nature of the market is perfect to introduce new things that are well established in the rest of the world. People are curious, they are looking for new things, and the young entrepreneurial spirits of the island should be there to provide them.

This brings me to the amazing performance that Goo Goo Dolls gave that night in Buffalo. They could had cancelled the concert as many bands do when there is such heavy rain. But they decided not to. The obstacle of the heavy rain would only become a real problem if they would have made it a problem. But they stood their ground and instead of seeing a problem, they saw a solution into the obstacle. The rain was the solution to an unforgettable night for them and the crowd. 

Obstacles only become problems for an entrepreneur if he or she decides to make them problems. Otherwise, they are solutions. 

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"I cannot tell you my idea, I do not have a patent in place yet!"

These are the exact words that come out of everyone's mouth after saying "I have a great idea!". But is this really necessary?

I have to admit that I was like that also not long ago. However, coming to San Francisco and talking with people in the start-up world, I realised that there is no such thing as protecting your idea. 

I know that in Cyprus everyone is competitive and everyone feels like people are going to steal your great idea and steal your 'thunder' with it. Well my friends, if other people can execute your idea better than you then maybe they deserve to execute it for the greater good. 

You should not be afraid of people 'stealing' your ideas. Discuss your ideas with people, copy, steal, there is nothing wrong with that. As Pablo Picasso said "Good artists copy, great artists steal". The world is an efficient place. What really matters is the execution, not the idea. So if someone is more capable than you in executing your idea, he should be the one executing. That's efficiency. 

The more you hide your idea from the people around you, the more you are hurting yourself. People around you are the most suitable to give you honest feedback and help you evolve the idea further.

Share. Copy. Steal. Nothing wrong.

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Be always one step ahead. 

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The plausibility of impossibility only becomes a probability with the disappearance of faith…

Unknown Source

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Alice in San Francisco-Land

“Alice is engaged in a romance quest for her own identity and growth, for some understanding of logic, rules, the games people play, authority, time, and death {…} she then begins to piece together the perfect world of her own while her imagination runs wild. {…} Alice follows the rabbit because she is “burning with curiosity”. Soon she finds things becoming “curiouser and curiouser.”

[…]

“Later in the story, she is told the tale of the Curious Oysters by Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum which is about how curiosity can lead to terrible things. This bares a strong resemblance to how people will often tell entrepreneurs that what they are trying to do is impossible, destroying an entrepreneur's sense of imagination and curiosity."

Every entrepreneur should be a bit more like Alice. She had no idea where she was heading, but she knew where she wanted to go. She followed her curiosity into a magical world. She was not stopped by anyone in her way to finding the world she was imagining. She took the risk to follow the rabbit because that's what she wanted to do at the given time.

No matter how small Cyprus is, it is a given that the people of Cyprus have always dreamed big. Everyone out there has a passion about something. And I also know that a lot of you out there have great ideas and you stop pursuing them because of a Tweedle Dee and a Tweedle Dum in your lives.

There is no such thing as free success, and the cost for success in the start-up world is the risk you have to take. If you are willing to stop pursuing your idea upon the first negative feedback, then you are not willing to take the risk that is needed to become successful. Living in San Francisco exposed me to many stories of entrepreneurs succeeding just because they were doing what they loved and they hustled, again and again, they believed in themselves, and they made others believe in them.

Every entrepreneur has a Tweedle Dee and a Tweedle Dum in his life. Do not let them destroy your sense of imagination and curiosity. Follow the rabbit. Fall into the hole with it. Even if it ends badly, you’ll still have the rabbit. 

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If you don't build your dream, someone will hire you to help build theirs...

Tony Gaskins

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What would you attempt to do if you knew that you could not fail?

Unknown Source

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Always keep this in mind. 

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Jack Dorsey's Advice for Youth: Video

Jack Dorsey, chairman and co-founder of Twitter Inc., talks about efforts to mentor young entrepreneurs and his work with the educational charity “BUILD.” He speaks with Bloomberg’s Emily Chang on Bloomberg Television's “Bloomberg West.” (Source: Bloomberg)

Worth to check out.