The start of something good

After starting and stopping many of my own small ventures over the past years, I am now at the point where I feel I can really focus on getting things going with some momentum. I was going over my notes I had recorded over the years and it seems that my ideas are still very relevant. The "ideal company" concept I came up with 3 years ago has been adopted by other companies now. This concept was to build a company which was a self sufficient incubator of ideas. The inspiration came from all my years of working at various companies where you could see what motivated employees and what did not.

One of the biggest motivators was often stock or stock options. The goal here is to reach the "big payout" where you cash out in exchange for all your laboring. The chances of such a payout is actually fairly small. Yes, you can get some amount of gains. I was able to clear about $25K out of flipping options in one company. But I have worked at 2 other startups where nothing came out of it other than a layoff.

Another motivator is accolades or recognition for a job well done. This benefit is amplified when you have ownership over something. When you are recognized as the owner or creator, you get an extra boost when that part of the project is successful.

My concept was to take a collection of highly motivated, entrepreneurial individuals and tap their true potential by providing them with real motivators:

1. Allow them to create and develop their own business venture ideas.
In a typical corporate environment, only the highest level of management is ever given the opportunity to initiate new business ideas. Some companies do allow for idea submissions but rarely would you be given the opportunity to define, develop, and market your idea on your own.

2. With idea ownership comes real rewards.
You may have in the past come up with great ideas that generated millions of dollars in increased revenue for your company. As a reward, you got a small bonus and your name in the company newsletter. Atta boy! This is nice and all but it would be much better if the idea creator also reaps the direct rewards. By direct rewards I mean a percentage on all profits generated. Tying the reward to the profit and not just the revenue means that the idea developer has it in their best interest to ensure the idea is profitable.

These are just 2 parts of the company concept. I'll elaborate on other ones in later posts.