Check out this excerpt from the Getting Real book by 37signals.
“Run on limited resources and you’ll be forced to reckon with constraints earlier and more intensely. And that’s a good thing. Constraints drive innovation.”
Say you make “the jump” from employed to self-employed. You probably have little money, few or no clients, and very limited resources. Your constraints will force you to succeed. It will take a lot of work and patience but you’ll do it. If you’re not willing to put in the work then you shouldn’t have made “the jump” in the first place.
At the Refresh meeting James mentioned that he started Forty Media with no clients. Now he owns one of the more well known web design companies in the state and all over the country.
Constraints motivate us to succeed and cause us to think outside the box.
This is an idea put forth by Charles Eames (among others).
http://metacool.typepad.com/metacool/2006/03/last_week_i_pos.html
What’s interesting, though, is how fast people will try to maximize their resources when given the chance. It’s common to romanticize deprivation; few people seek it out, though.
Posted by James on Apr 8, 2006.