All the good stuff comes from leaping. From doing things that might not work – Seth Godin #MondayMorningWakeUpCall

Google – While Excite, Lycos, AltaVista, Yahoo were busy matching words in queries with words on web pages, Larry & Sergey continued focussing on building an algorithm that prioritized results based on relevance even though each of these hot shot search engines of that time passed up an offer to buy Google for one million dollars.

The result, for the first time there was a way to do an internet search and find useful and relevant answers swiftly. They still continue to take giant leaps with Google Eye, Google Energy, Google Goggles, driverless car amongst their myriad of innovations.

Tata Nano – Ratan Tata put Tata on the world map with his audacious leap of faith of building a car under $2000 to make car buying affordable for everyone. It may or may not have worked but it is ‘good stuff’ that now the world is aspiring towards.

Elon Musk – Referred to as the real ‘Iron Man’. He made $165 million from his sale of PayPal to eBay. When Tesla Motors was running out of cash, he put all of his remaining earnings, $40 million, from the PayPal sale to keep Tesla Motors alive. Today Daimler-Mercedes has invested $90 million in Tesla Motors, Obama Administration has lent $465 million in Tesla Motors and Elon Musk raised $226 million through Tesla Motors IPO. Elon Musk is well on his way to fulfilling his promise of making battery electric cars affordable to the middle class by 2018.

His leaps extend to SolarCity, a vision to combat global warming through Solar Energy and creating ‘a true spacefaring’ civilization through his rocket motor company SpaceX.

Zappos.com – What is a forced norm in India now was a game changer in USA a decade ago – free shipping. Zappos.com is one of the leading e-commerce portals in USA. It got acquired by Amazon for $1.2 billion in 2011. It’s mantra from the start has been ‘delivering happiness’. In keeping with this mantra, Zappos had then taken huge leap of faith of providing free shipping for both delivery and return of goods, paving the way for consumer delight.

Apple – Mackintosh revolutionized the PC industry. iPod revolutionized the portable music player and the music industry. iPhone revolutionized the smart phone, nay, the phone industry. These revolutions didn’t come from incremental changes. They came by making radical leaps, leaps in technology, leaps in vision and leaps in faith.

RedBus – Who knew that our erstwhile disorganized bus travel market, where one was not guaranteed the seats even if tickets were booked and bus operators had never used a computer let alone understand how a software could help them, would now be as streamlined as booking an airline or a movie ticket. I don’t think Phanindra Sama knew either.

Let’s not run, let’s leap.