I had a great meeting yesterday with a new local business who are doing very well. It was great hearing their story, in particular how they had an idea and they just went after it. There was no 40 page business plan, angel investor pitches, mentor meetings etc. They had a simple hypothesis based on a real problem they’d witnessed. They came up with an idea for a solution, pitched it to a real customer and were on their way.

Once they had acquired that first customer they focused on serving them well and things progressed and grew naturally from there. I love stories like these because we don’t esteem them enough. Our business press is dominated by stories about the folks with the cash, the funders, the accelerators, the businesses that made it ‘overnight’. I’m worried we don’t esteem simple everyday businesses enough, which are the core of our economy.

Not every business requires an investor, a grant, or an incubator but every business does require a first customer!

Yes we need the crazies swinging for the fences but I don’t believe that we all have to target building billion dollar companies. Making up numbers here, for every ten people trying to create billion dollar businesses, we need a hundred creating million dollar businesses and thousands creating thousand dollar businesses.

These are not mutually exclusive. In fact the homogeneity of all founders swinging for the fences is massively risky or represents an opportunity, depending on your perspective. There may be a gap in the market place if everyone’s aiming for the massive pot of gold.

There’s also the question of leadership. There’s no question that a billion dollar company requires world class leadership. As Maxwell illustrates with his law of the lid, you are only as effective as your ability to lead. Becoming a great leader requires practice, experience. Yes you may eventually lead the NHL in scoring but today you need to focus on learning to skate.

Growing a business at a slower pace is allowed. It’s not an excuse to drag your feet or ignore growth opportunities but a more realistic pace offers a businesses leaders the chance to get their feet underneath them each and every day and scale well with their team, their customers, and their market. While we’re hoping for some crazy home runs, I’m just as excited about Startupify.Me churning out some good old everyday businesses.