"Entrepreneurialism is essentially a belief system: you must believe in something that is bigger than yourself". A strong message for young entrepreneurs and the entire startup ecosystem. Mårten Mickos has been the CEO of MySQL AB, a relatively small European company that he guided to an exit worth one billion, when in 2008 the company was sold to Sun Microsystems. Not a surprise if the talk he gave for the Stanford University's Entrepreneurship Corner in Nov. 2011 was titled exactly in this way: Believe in Something Bigger Than Yourself.
His lesson is strongly inspiring both for startups and big corporations.
You need to believe in something that is bigger than the business you are, attempting to address something that is bigger than everything. You must have a belief in something absolutely enormous that you can do for this planet. You must have a belief that there is something you can do that nobody else can do, and if you do it the world will be a better place. You must have it as part of your entrepreneurial soul.
The first part of his speech is for entrepreneurs. Equally relevant is the second one, when he tells the story of MySQL' organization - or, as he says, "Global distributed organization". The 75% of the 500 employees in 110 different locations work from home, keeping each other in contact electronically. Mickos' vision is radical: "Offices are so last century", he says in this passage of his talk. Offices are an heritage of the Industrial Era, but "This not how the real world works anymore". So, the call for transforming industries is not only about business, or changing markets, etcetera. It is also a deeper consideration about processes, and how companies are used to work in the digital era.
Of course, trust is fundamental at all levels. Going back to the beginning of Mickos' talk, he underlines that in order to build a business "You must also believe in yourself. You don't need to be arrogant, bold or anything. You must have a basic, fundamental belief that you are useful, that you can make something important, that you can make a difference. Because if you don't believe in yourself, who would?".
This is also true for the startups ecosystem. We need more experienced entrepreneurs - and Mickos is a brilliant example of an European one - but we also need a system that supports a fast development of young companies. As in this other quote: "You must have somebody that believes in you. More than you do".
