For his 65th year on earth, Virgin Group founder Richard Branson is taking on 65 challenges – one of which is to write a poem for entrepreneurs.
Challenge accepted! Sir Branson wrote a 16-line poem of rhyming couplets, expounding on his views about business.
For example, he isn’t one of those “morals don’t belong in the boardroom” tycoons:
Make bold moves, but always play fair,
Always say please and thank you – it’s cool to care.
And he knows that it’s tempting to fret over whether you’ll be successful:
Now, stop worrying about whether your business will be a hit,
Rise to the challenge and say ‘screw it, let’s do it!’
(Read the full poem here.)
Have other entrepreneurs waxed lyrical about the startup life, I wondered? It turns out Branson isn’t the only one to use verse to express his feelings on market disruption and the road to success. Below are three other startup-related poems you might want to check out:
“Love My Startup More Than You” by CEO Rizwan Virk
Towards you my sweetheart I’ll always feel
A neverending attraction
But right now what I really need to show
Is more customer traction!
“A Very Startup Christmas” by MindSumo
Christmas Eve could not even dispel all the gloom
Past investors now acted like “angels” of doom
The founders bemoaned their missed chance to be wealthy
While their “rockstar” developers took ill-advised selfies.
Read more…
“Startups” by Flid
You can age a couple decades in just a few years
Just trying to get over all of your fears…
Read more…
What with all the drama and humor in the startup world, you’d think there would be even more startup poetry out there. Anyone want to give it a go?
Image credit: By D@LY3D [CC BY 2.0], via Wikimedia Commons