Advice to start-up from Jim Balsillie, the CEO of Research in Motion

RIM is a company I respect. With all the innovative products, it is hard to focus on one single function, Email. But it succeeded.

Excerpt from GSMA website.


Q: Can you tell of the inspiration behind the idea of Blackberry. What were the technological and market forces at that time that made you believe that this could be a potentially great company?

Jim: Well, the inspiration, I think, really lies in seeing what we thought were the trends and thus anticipating the changes in the market, and doing the work in advance of these things happening. And you got to remember these trends are always obvious in hindsight, but at foresight they are far from obvious. In the mid 90s when we are working o

Q: last question. What advice would you give a young start-up in technology today?

Jim: Trust your original thought. You are trying to look around corners and anticipate what's happening and do original thought. And from that, from the view in the world, there are opportunities going and so you have to form your own thoughts, trust your own thoughts. I think always stay with passion and enjoyment, focus and intensity because that will give you persistence. Sometimes these things are more difficult, sometimes they take longer so, you need to have a focused and energetic approach to it. And the other thing I would say, always, you will have many opportunities where you'll have to make a choice on a short term approach versus a long term approach, or an ethical compromise or not and I found it just being honest and being straightforward and taking a long term approach. You sleep well and it pays rich dividends, and so never lie, never cheat, never take a short term approach...though sometimes it's tempting. But I've seen it and it's not a way to do business and not a way to live. It's actually not very smart because it comes back to you. So whenever one of those reasons is going to motivate you, take a long term, honest (approach)...If you cheat somebody, they basically say this is not someone I can trust. So take a long term, honest approach.