Be a Visionary: Dream Big, Think Long-Term

In the earliest days of starting up a business (an earlier company, long before IAC-EZ) my focus was on “today”. Each day – “today” – was a new challenge and I would sit down at my desk and work hard that day to make “today” count. It sounds like a good plan. And, if you add up the successes of each “today”, you end up with something significant at the end of the year.

In retrospect, though, I didn’t give enough attention to “tomorrow” in my earliest business ventures. I was too focused on now to think of later. It’s an easy habit to get into as a business owner because you’re just starting up and just trying to make sales and all you can do is make right now count for something.

But there does a come a point (and it’s different for every entrepreneur, I’ve found), when you realize you’re on a bit of a treadmill. Yes, you might be building a strong foundation of good “todays” but every day starts at zero and you try to do something significant and never quite finish everything you’d like to do. And, by focusing on “today”, it’s harder to make investment decisions for your business for the long term.

Everyone might start by thinking about “today” but eventually smart business owners make the switch to thinking about “tomorrow”. They go from building the foundation of the business to building the future of the business. They make decisions that might slightly increase short-term expenses but ultimately improve long-term profitability.

I just read an interesting (but perhaps controversial) article called “What Every Entrepreneur Can Learn from Mark Zuckerberg“. Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, has received a lot of bad press from the privacy-related missteps he’s made in recent months, but you do have to credit him with building such a game-changing site. The article talks about Zuckerberg’s vision for his company and the web, which the article’s author says is measured in decades, not weeks or months.

I think this is a great step to work towards, although I also recognize that it’s not going to be easy for entrepreneurs who are busy focusing on “today”. So, start with this: Why not take a few minutes to write down your vision for the rest of this year. Let it percolate for a couple of days then take a few minutes to write down your vision for next year. Let that percolate for a couple of days. Then take a few minutes to write down your vision for the next 2-3 years. Then the next 5 years. Then the next decade. Give some time between each exercise so you can think it and live with it for a while. And don’t be afraid to be bold. We live in a world that changes fast and we may be using resources in 5 years that we can’t even conceive of today.

This isn’t a technique that will change how you think overnight, but it can change how you think (and how your business grows) over the long-term.

Jessica Routier, IAC-EZ