Never lose your focus. It’s about building a great product not being startup famous.
Those lines came to me after an afternoon of being envious of where a friend’s startup was and reading the tweets of some other friends of mine who were at a VIP dinner for a Tech Crunch Disrupt.
It is very easy to lose focus…so very easy especially when you are surrounded by amazing people. It’s hard to remind yourself that you are not working on your project, whatever it is, to become famous but rather because you want to build something great period.
In Black Founders I want to build something great. Period. I want to do my part to change the world and make it better. I will be honest I feel like Silicon Valley is one of the last thresholds for the civil right’s movement. Let me explain what I mean. It’s not because I think techies are more racist than anyone—I don’t think any people group inherently is. But rather, the last stronghold for blacks is in the institutions that control money.
Right now people of color and also women have an opportunity to close the gap. Tech, at the beginning, does not take as much capital to start up as a traditional business. The barrier to entry for a technology company is much more achievable then for the standard brick and mortar store. Tie that along with the fact that the Silicon Valley economy is starting to pick up and if we get our acts together the picture of SV being young, white, male might just change.
But if I get caught up in the game of trying to see who is watching me, trying to find people who agree with me and tell me my idea is valuable I will lose focus and make decisions that are not in the best interest of BF but rather are in my own best interests.
I have to remind myself of this higher goal too often. I wish I never faltered, never wanted recognition, or proof that my idea has value, validity. Reality: I’m not a super hero, I’m just another women trying to make the world better. Reality: if I live my life well it will be proof that one person can make a difference.
