All You Need Is An Idea - Jon Radoff - Leadership in Action- Episode #58

Today's guest on Leadership In Action is an entrepreneur, innovator, and leader in his industry who fights for the game makers of the world. As a game developer, he created one of the first commercial Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games. Joining the show today is an EO Boston member of 5 years, CEO of Beamable, Jon Radoff. Jon joins host Mark Stiles to talk about what it takes to get a business started, the value of customer feedback, and what visiting Everest base camp is like.     Takeaways: You don’t need to be special to be an entrepreneur. All you need is an idea and the drive to take it and run with it.  It’s ok to pivot. Your original idea doesn’t need to be what your product looks like for the rest of the business. As you meet others, and bring on new perspectives, your idea will evolve and change. While those who criticize your new idea may seem demoralizing, their feedback can provide ways to improve. They might point out something technical that hasn’t been solved yet, or tell you about a customer type you weren't aware of. Entrepreneurship can be a perseverance game. Sometimes you will need to stick with your idea for a long time before the market is ready for it. While this will slow you down, it doesn’t mean game over.  Sometimes the business needs to be built before the idea. If you have grand ideas of how your product will fit into the future, you need to start by selling the thing consumers will buy now.  AI tools are something that every entrepreneur should keep an eye out for over the next few years. As new, more powerful tools emerge, they will empower you to try new ideas with lower costs and less risk. As AI becomes more prevalent, it will shift the types of skill sets that are needed to be successful. Instead of being a specialist on a given topic or process, establishing a well rounded skill set will line you up for success.     Links:  LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonradoff/   Twitter: https://twitter.com/jradoff   Company website: https://beamable.com/   Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jon_Radoff   Medium: https://jradoff.medium.com/   Quote of the Show “We're all in the business of serving customers.” - Jon Radoff Ways to Tune In: Apple Podcast - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/leadership-in-action/id1585042233 Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/2t4Ksk4TwmZ6MSfAHXGkJI Stitcher - https://www.stitcher.com/show/leadership-in-action Google Play - https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cubGVhZGVyc2hpcGluYWN0aW9uLmxpdmUvZmVlZC54bWw Amazon Music - https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/4263fd02-8c9b-495e-bd31-2e5aef21ff6b/leadership-in-action YouTube - https://youtu.be/h4OCqARffMQ  Transcript: Mark Stiles: Hey folks. Welcome back to Leadership and Action, your Boston Chapter of Entrepreneurs Organization podcast. Today's guest. Is an entrepreneur or innovator and leader in his industry. He fights for the game makers of the world and is responsible for creating one of the first M O RPGs, massively multiplayer online role playing games is what that stands for. He's been an EO member for five years. He also publishes a blog called Building the Metaverse, c e O of Beam Able. John Rador.  Jon Radoff: Welcome to the show. Hey Mark. How are you? Thanks for having me doing  Mark Stiles: well. Question number one, what is the common misconception about leadership running a business and or being an entrepreneur?  Jon Radoff: Go. To me, it's the idea that you have to be some kind of special person to be an entrepreneur. Let me zoom back the camera lens though, my purpose in life as far as business is concerned is just multiplying creativity through the world. That's what I've done through some of the game businesses I've made, through the technology company I have through the website creation tech company that I started years ago. Everything was about just allowing people to be more creative and just get online, make stuff, express themselves, because I think that's just. such At the core of what it is to be human entrepreneurship is creativity. It's about how to come up with ideas and business models and marketing methods and channels and just put it, together, try things and, make something new, right? Like entrepreneurship is fundamentally to me about like making something new, harnessing business and organizations of people to do that. So, you know, I was very lucky in. Respect as a kid that I would have all these crazy ideas when I was like a teenager and I'd tell my parents what I want to do. Both my parents always encouraged me. They never said, oh, you can't do that. Like, bad idea. Go, go focus on like your math problem so you can end up, uh, getting into a decent college. I did get into a decent college, which I've then subsequently dropped out of. But um, they always encouraged me just to, to go run with my ideas. So if you didn't hear that in your life so far, I guess my message to you is, You know, run with the idea. You can do it. Like if you want to try making a business, it doesn't require anything special beyond the idea that you've identified a problem that has to be solved in the world. And if you can go help people solve that problem. , apply your creativity to it. It, it's a, it's a great life.  Mark Stiles: You know, so many thoughts are firing through my head right now with what you're saying there. Uh, with respect to, you know, who can be and who thinks they can be. But talking about your parents, I think is such a vital, vital component to it because how many people in that creative stage of their life get muzzled down and they say, no, no, no. get into a good school, get a good job, get a pension, retire and die .  Jon Radoff: Wow. This, this talk just took a, a damn path. But, um, yeah, I, I think everybody needs, uh, set of cheerleaders in your life. Yeah. So for me growing up, it was my parents, um, . I...