I was watching a program on television recently concerning the rise of videos, and in particular, viral videos (those that become enormously popular by being shared unprompted on social media and the internet in general). It focused on YouTube and gave a short history of how the founders of YouTube got started. In short, their first attempts at launching a video platform were dismal – they posted a video and it received one view! They tried a few other changes to their idea and after a few false starts, YouTube quickly became one of the fastest growing sites on the web. About one year after launching, Google bought YouTube for US$1.65billion!
Imagine if the founders of YouTube, sitting in their garage with their new idea, had given up after that first attempt? Instead, they believed in their concept and continued to tweak the way YouTube functioned. It was not long before others saw the potential (most notably, Nike, who posted a video that was actually an advertisement, giving YouTube its first one-million hit video). And the rest is history.
While most of us are not going to have the phenomenal success of YouTube, we should still be on the lookout for opportunities. I think though that some of us view ‘opportunity’ as good luck or something that creates an easy path to success. Thomas Edison said “Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.”
Another great view of opportunity is from Winston Churchill, who said that “A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.” So sometimes (or perhaps often?) opportunity is what you make of a situation, rather than something that ‘happens’ to come your way.
(And by the way, if you’ve never seen one of the most watched YouTube clips ever, go to ‘Charlie bit my finger - again!’ It has had over half a billion views and earned Charlie’s family more than $150,000).
Michelle Grice writes a weekly column for business women in The Western Weekender