What would you do if there were no rules or set path to achieving success? In this podcast, Matt Ward explains his philosophy behind his theory that there are no rules. “In life and business, there are set patterns,” he explains,”but at the end of the day, you can do what you want to do.” And he would know -- Matt started out as an engineer but now runs an ecommerce company.”I was always the straight A student, really rules focused, a bit of a nerd. Great at math and science, not so great at English,” he admits.
After becoming dissatisfied with the corporate world and discovering his love for crowdfunding and ecommerce, he began exploring the idea that rules should be abandoned. He happened upon the idea after reading Eckhart Tolle’s bestseller (and Oprah approved) “The Power of Now”. The book asserts that there is no past because it's over, and there is no future. Additionally, Tolle believes that most problems technically don’t exist because they’re in the future. This was a life changing revelation for Matt, who ended up on a completely different course than the one he started on.
As the head of a Fulfilled By Amazon company, he breaks down how Amazon has broken the rules and subsequently changed history. While competing giant Ebay encouraged people to bid on items, Amazon allowed people to get the best product for the lowest cause. “Raw efficiency... makes things really easy for consumers and is one way Amazon is breaking the rules,” he says.
Matt also believes that many entrepreneurs are victims of analysis paralysis, “You don’t have to be perfect to launch. Perfectionist syndrome keeps people on the beaten path. You [end up] holding yourself back. That’s the main difference between “wantrepreneurs” and “entrepreneurs.”
He encourages entrepreneurs to change course if something isn’t working, a lesson he learned after stopping his crowdfunding story.
He leaves budding entrepreneurs with this advice, “Go do something stupid so that you’ll learn incredible things from it. Set outlandishly large goals. Plan goals over the next 12 months while having this mind set. If you shoot for the moon and get 10% of the way there, you’re going to have a hell of a success story… assuming you have a rocket.”
Check out the whole conversation.