Kawasaki believes the essense of entrepreneurship is about making meaning; changing the world in a positive way should be the core of any new start up. In The Art of the Start, he defines four ways to create meaning:

• Make the world a better place
• Increase the quality of life
• Right a terrible wrong
• Prevent the end of something good

“If you make meaning, you will probably make money. But if you set out ot make money, you will probably not make meaning and you will not make money.”

Does your business strive towards one of these four goals? Seeking meaning shifts your focus away from money, power, prestige and all of the other temporal results of starting a company and instead focuses it on changing the world in a positive way. Will people 200 years from now still benefit from the things your company does today? Set out to create genuine meaning and they just might.

You can watch Kawasaki speak more on this topic and others at the Stanford Technology Ventures Program website.

When you think small business, think 1-10 people not 50-100. There’s an endless supply of 1-10 person companies. Who cares about the Fortune 500? It’s time to care about the Fortune 5,000,000. Forget the enterprise market. Forget the mid-sized company market. Build for the smallest of small companies and you’ll find a thirsty, neglected market waiting for you.

Think long and hard about your target market. Read more about Side-Business Software: The neglected software market