There's something special about entrepreneurs whose startups take off and those whose stay small--starting with how they begin.
In studying successful entrepreneurs for my new book, Breakthrough Branding, I was struck by a series of contrarian habits that set them apart. Here are five contrarian lessons that I learned from them.
1. Think "small" rather than search for a "big idea."
Contrary to everything we've heard about finding a "big idea," there's a fundamental paradox in business. Big ideas are small--simple, focused and different so they can occupy a specific niche and dominate their category. Kevin Systrom was building a location-based mobile business like Foursquare, but found that only one piece of it, the photo app, was different and had real traction with customers. So he focused on the photo app, named it Instagram, and became insta-rich. If you can't write your business idea on the back of your business card or explain it to a ten-year old, you probably have a big, bad idea.
To read the full, original article click on this link: 5 Contrarian Lessons From Successful Entrepreneurs | Fast Company
