Momentum of the Muse

Last week I went to the inaugural VEF Momentum event. Momentum is like the younger brother/sister to

Vancouver Enterprise Forum; it was created “to connect, mentor and inspire young and aspiring entrepreneurs.” How did someone with a pre-packaged blogger template and inability to install even a simple widget end up at a tech event?

My friend, Arnold Leung was one of the people running it, and wanted to “get more chicks out.” In true Arnold-style, he did not consider that I might also be a young and aspiring entrepreneur, but rather confined me to a female number. I’ll forgive him; it’s not his fault I’m so adorable it’s hard to take me seriously.

Fair enough! I was bored a couple of times. I must have looked like a 4 year old flower girl at a wedding, tugging on her dress until it ends up over her head. I also didn’t get the punchlines of jokes.

“So, any questions?”
“Yeah … huhuh hahaha huh … where can I get a quantum computer?”

Uproarious laughter ensues. Wtf?

It reminds me of a time in university, I was sitting in a hot tub at an engineering party and two guys started talking in 1’s and 0’s, apparently communicating in binary. There were people crying, they were laughing so hard. Wtf? A girl did a math problem? Witch, witch, witch.

However, the keynotes speaker, Dr Geordie Rose, had four steps to success, and three of them could be put to work for me. I’m just going to give a general idea of them.

1. Have a BIG idea. Make sure it’s exciting. Make sure it’s global, huge, important and cool. Take whatever idea you have – it’s not big enough. Make it 20 times bigger. Apparently, a project is more likely to get funding if it’s huge, rather than small, and you’re more likely to be passionate about the end result. This kind of talk gets me fired up. Forget realistic and boring; let’s get crazy and create.
2. Get help. Find a mentor, someone who’s done it before. Let them guide you. Use their wisdom, and profit from their experience.
3. Pitch Cascadia. N/A in this case.
4. Do not give up. Keep trying, work out the kinks and never, ever give up. Until you’re dead, like a female octopus. Er. Well, just be tenacious.

I really enjoyed this speech. It was very straightforward, simple, yet there were no mistakes made about how much work would be involved in any worthwhile and rewarding endeavor.

What is your formula for success, if any? Oooo, or what ISN’T your formula for success?