One Brilliant Flash, And We’re Gone

Jim Westergren is 25 and lives in southern Sweden. He started an SEO company (search engine optimization). The business grew to a reasonably successful level – then he quit. To write. Read the story in his own words here.

He concludes, “The company was never meant to go that far.”

That sentiment echoes throughout many circles today. Time was when you never heard such a comment. Tom Peters has long argued that great companies are not necessarily built to last, but to make a difference, then go away – perhaps resurrected in a different form, perhaps to never rise again. He may have it right.

Pick up any copy of Fast Company, Inc. or one of the other business magazines that fosters small business or entrepreneurship and you’ll read about some character who started a business that rose from modesty to wild success! Many of these businesses are quite young – often less than 5 years old. Some measure their maturity in months, not years. Often they grow from start-up to millions FAST, thanks to this Internet age.

In a world full of strategy and planning it’s refreshing to know a company can achieve wild success even though it was never the plan. Sort of makes fools of the strategists who spend countless hours/days and millions of dollars trying to figure out how to have lasting power.

I think I’m going to start working on a new strategy. I’ll call it “Phlash-In-The-Pan.” My mantra will be, “We’re like lightning. One brilliant flash, and we’re GONE.”