One of the advantages of owning an independent company is that you don't need permission.
Not from a board. Not from investors who need to justify the quarter. Not from a process that requires three sign-offs before anything unusual gets greenlit. You can just decide.
Most people in this position don't use it enough. They set self-limiting beliefs – culturally confined, worried about what other people think. The ambitious ones run the business carefully, sensibly, in straight lines. Which is fine. Just not exciting.
The weird idea – the one that probably won't work, the one you'd never pitch to anyone with a financial stake in the outcome – that's exactly what independence is for. Public companies worth billions can't touch it. Businesses accountable to someone else can't afford the embarrassment. You can.
I think about this every time I catch myself hesitating over something small and strange, or something that should apparently be done a certain way. The hesitation is a reflex. It doesn't belong here.
Try the thing. Cover for someone else trying their thing. See what catches.
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