Mikitani: “They were wrong about Rakuten, about e-commerce”

I love it when big name entrepreneurs have blogs. There’s always interesting tips and stories to follow. This time it comes from Hiroshi Mikitani, the CEO and founder of Rakuten (pictured right), which is Japan’s e-commerce giant that invested in Pinterest early in May.

In his latest blog post on LinkedIn, Mikitani wrote that Rakuten’s e-commerce prowess may not have existed if he had listened to advisors who told him that e-commerce was a game he was too late to enter. He wrote:

When I began the process of founding Rakuten, I had more than one person advise me not to go into e-commerce. Many people told me the concept of the Internet mall was over, that shoppers were not interested in it. How did they know? It was, I was told, common sense. They were wrong about Rakuten, about e-commerce, and about the value of common sense.

Mikitani went on urging entrepreneurs to challenge advises given to them. I particularly like how he uses learning to walk as a metaphor to describe how an idea is never fixed, never right:

Consider a child, just learning to walk. That child will often stumble. The act of walking requires that one must lose balance and then regain it – putting one foot in front of the other. By repeating this process, you move forward. Progress in society or business moves much the same way. There is a constant forward motion, stumbling, regaining balance. Nothing is ever finished or fixed. Therefore, no one can ever declare his or her idea absolutely right. There is no absolute. Only the evolution of ideas.

If I’m interpreting it correctly, I think executing an idea is also part of the act of walking. If someone never executes, the idea will always remain a mystery, it will never fail but will never succeed either. That’s not moving forward. That’s remaining on square one. Even failure, most of time, will push you forward.

I’m quite a keen admirer of Mikitani and his Rakuten legacy. For folks who are interested, you can follow him on LinkedIn to follow his thoughts.