We love rebels and people who challenge the status quo, conventional wisdom and mainstream narratives and so we asked some really bright folks to tell us about one piece of conventional advice they disagree with.

Audu Maikori | Pioneer and promoter of Afrobeat music , media and entertainment Entrepreneur & entertainment lawyer focused on film, Esports and TV

i don’t believe that businesses /start-ups need lots of money to be successful- or should I say- I don’t believe that the amount of money you raise or can access determines how successful your business will be. Instead, I believe that the key determinant of a business’s success is the amount of value that is created for an identifiable target market/audience/customer and the amount of work being put into continuously creating, delivering, and capturing value for the client/customer. The money usually comes after. Read more>>

Mark St. Vil | Attorney & Business Owner

Often times, you are told or advised that you have to get all your ducks in a row before proceeding with an endeavor. While I can appreciate the concept of planning, there must be a point where the rubber hits the road. Stated differently, you can only plan so much before you have to actually take action. After all, the most pertinent part of a plan is its execution – you can strategize, plot and design the perfect scheme; however, the execution of the plan is what will be remembered. Read more>>

Jemila MacEwan | Artist

“Survival of the fittest.” It is my hope that we are moving out of the fiercely competitive modality that dominated the last three decades into an era of mutual-aid and courageous collaboration. The notion of survival of the fittest is a misinterpretation of Darwin’s theory of evolutionary success that has stubbornly stuck in the collective entrepreneurial imagination for far too long. What I have learned from working closely with soil, fungi, plants and animals is that the endurance of life depends greatly on mutually beneficial exchanges of resources and habitat sharing. Contrast that with the stark image of nature as ruthlessly competitive – a dogma that has been used to justify a socially dysfunctional system of competition that has left us with vast inequalities which are often racist, sexist and ableist. Read more>>