Instagram’s founders, Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger, started with a big dream - a dream to build the world’s best on-line photo sharing service.
From the outset, they pursued their big dream with an obsessive focus, purpose and urgency.
They quickly pulled together a small team, secured initial venture capital funding and launched Instagram in late 2010. It was an instant hit. Within hours of launching thousands of people had downloaded the Instagram app, crashing all of their systems. The service proved to be wildly successful and within months Instagram had millions of active users.
Instagram weren’t alone in pursuing the dream of creating on-line photo sharing service. At the time, many businesses, including Facebook, were developing similar services. Instagram, however, built their service faster and better than anyone else.
In April 2012, barely 18 months after launching Instagram, Facebook bought the business for a staggering US$1 billion. Mark Zuckerberg wisely left Systrom and Kreiger in charge of Instagram and they continue to run it successfully to this day.
Why Big Dreams Matter
At the heart of every great company is a big dream. Think of any outstanding company – Apple, Google, Virgin, Amazon – they all have one. And you don’t just know it when you see it, you can actually feel it.
Big dreams are important. Steve Jobs summed it up well when he said:
“You have to be burning with an idea, or a wrong you want to right.
If you’re not passionate enough from the start, you’ll never stick it out.”
A big dream provides the foundation for you as business owner to develop the vision and purpose for your business.
And a clear vision and sense of purpose is the engine room of all great businesses. It defines the reason for your business to exist. It provides your business mission, drives your business culture and provides the focus and passion you need to overcome the many challenges that will otherwise prevent your business from succeeding.
But What if You Don’t Have a Big Dream?
It’s actually a very common problem. Most businesses don’t start with a big dream. In fact, they don’t start with any dream at all, they just start.
Without a big dream to inspire them to develop a clear and compelling purpose for their business, most business owners begin on the back foot. From day one they have effectively limited their ability to ever scale their business in the future.
But let’s be frank, creating a big dream for their business is a pretty daunting prospect for most new business owners.
Well there’s one guy who has spent more time thinking about this important issue than anyone I know, Michael E Gerber, author of the mega-bestseller The E-Myth Revisited and the man Inc. magazine calls “the World’s #1 Small Business Guru”.
When I recently had the unique opportunity to spend a day with Michael in his hometown of Carlsbad, California, to talk about why it’s so important to start your business with a big dream and learn more about Michael’s unique approach to helping business owners develop big dreams I jumped at the chance.
Michael and I talked about a lot of things - the importance of working on your business not in your business, scaling your business and getting the right business exit. Mostly though we talked about the importance of starting right, starting with a big dream. Because if you start with the right big dream you can then design, build, launch and grow a scalable and successful business.
In his recent book, Beyond The E-Myth, Michael provides a clear and easy to follow framework for creating a big dream.
The Dreaming Room™
Michael also understands that it’s hard for most business owners to create a big dream on their own so he’s spent the last 15 years crafting a unique approach to help them do it. It’s called The Dreaming Room™, an intimate and powerful space where business owners can liberate themselves from the past and present and imagine a new entrepreneurial future starting with a clean piece of paper.
Over 2 ½ intensive days in The Dreaming Room™ Michael uses his powerful gifts of inspiration, imagination and innovation to help business owners make profound breakthroughs and create new futures for themselves and their businesses.
If you’re up for a once in lifetime transformational experience for you and your business, the next Dreaming Room™ will be held in San Diego, California from 3 March to 5 March 2017 and is limited to 50 participants.