Eureka Moments Leading to 3 Great Entrepreneurial Ideas
Life can be divided into two periods – before you know why you are alive and after. The two are separated by a single moment – the Aha! moment. That one brainwave turns a person into a person on a mission.
In this blog, we share the examples of Eureka moments of 3 great personalities that led them to an unmatched success. Sure, for them, it was a process to get to that moment. But it was a catalyst that one day made them say, “Aha!”
Jack Ma, founder of Alibaba Group
Determined to enter business, Jack Ma set up a translation company, but he still had to peddle goods on the street to get by. He traveled to the United States in 1995 as a translator to help a Chinese firm recover a payment. The attempt failed, and the American who owed money pulled a gun on him. But a friend in Seattle showed Ma the Internet, and an idea began brewing.
He noticed there was not a single online listing for “China” and “beer,” unlike those that popped up for American and German beer. He returned to China and set up a listing site that he later sold to the government. After working in Beijing for an Internet firm under the Ministry of Commerce, he decided to quit his job in 1999 and went back to Hangzhou with his team in order to found Alibaba in his apartment with a group of 17 friends. Alibaba is one of the largets e-commerce sites which currently serves more than 79 million members from more than 240 countries and territories.
Samuel Morse, inventor of Telegraph
It was while working on the portrait of Lafayette that Morse suffered the personal tragedy that changed his life forever. In Washington, D.C., for the commission, Morse received a letter from his father–delivered via the standard, slow-moving horse messengers of the day–that his wife was gravely ill. Morse immediately left the capital and raced to his Connecticut home. By the time he arrived, however, his wife was not only dead—she had already been buried. It is believed that the grief-stricken Morse, devastated that it had taken days for him to receive the initial notification of his wife’s illness, shifted his focus away from his art career and instead dedicated himself to improving the state of long-distance communication. With this dedication, Morse contributed to the invention of a single-wire telegraph system based on European telegraphs. He was a co-developer of the Morse code, and helped to develop the commercial use of telegraphy.
Nick Woodman, founder of GoPro Inc.
GoPro is a camera designed for heavy-duty action, like skydiving and surfing. It goes (and survives) where other cameras can’t.
He knew he wanted to build a new company, so he planned a 5 month surfing trip around Australia and Indonesia for inspiration. Woodman needed a camera to document his time there, so he strapped one to his arm with rubber bands. He was hoping to capture quality action photos of his surfing, but because amateur photographers could not get close enough, or obtain quality equipment at reasonable prices, he had an idea which led to the launch of a line of durable cameras that come fitted with mounting gear allowing users to capture images and video of their most active moments. His desire for a camera system that could capture the professional angles inspired the ‘GoPro’ name.
If you are searching for a brilliant business idea, start by looking at the simple problems right in front of you. After all, finding solutions to the problems at their very own finger tips is what inspired Steve Jobs to launch Apple, Donald Fisher to launch Gap, Ingvar Kampard to launch IKEA and Ben Silbermann to launch Pinterest. 🙂