Everyone wants to be a founder. We’re getting international appraise for being so creative and innovative within the entrepreneurship ecosystem in Cairo. Forbes wrote about us, BBC, heck we even wrote a book about it! It’s not a shocker then, when everyone wants to jump on the wagon, and become a founder; someone who can solve a problem, create a good amount of income and become a PR sensation: sounds like a good deal to me!
It became a dream that turned into a phantom that would haunt you during your stressful nights. I should quit and become a Founder. A founder of what? I don’t know, a Founder I tell you! I want to be a Founder!
We’ll I’m writing this article to tell you that the best people out there are not the founders, but the followers, specifically the first follower.
It is the person who came to know about an idea or startup in its initial stages, pumped it into their energy, money, time and devoted their life into making it grow. They are not called a co-founder, a founder, and maybe they won’t get the PR attention that desire any words and pictures of these people. However, without the follower, the startup is nothing, and it will fall and crumble. Without them, the team falls and without them there is no startup, but no they don’t get to be interviewed.
“Without the follower, there is no entrepreneur.”
A few years back I saw this video called First Follower: Leadership Lessons from a Dancing Guy
“There is no movement without the first follower.”
The best way to make a movement, if you really care, is to courageously follow and show others how to follow. When you find a lone nut doing something great, have the guts to be the first person to stand up and join in.
Let me tell you something, if we consider entrepreneurship in Egypt as a movement, then thank the first followers for standing up and joining in, turning the lunatics into leaders.
It is because of the first followers it became a widespread phenomenon. It is because of the first followers that we all one day had the dream of becoming a founder.
It is because of the first followers that Egypt became an entrepreneurial sensation.
It is because of them we got the international appraise and attention. You shouldn’t dream of becoming a founder.
Let the phantom that haunts you while you work at your desk job tell you,
Join a startup, don’t create one.
Create the movement, be a follower.
Find a lunatic and make him sane.
Be a follower, not a founder.
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