Why Curiosity Is a Successful Founder’s Best Friend

The poet Maya Angelou once claimed that courage is the most important virtue — because without courage, it becomes impossible to practice any other virtue consistently.

These are incredibly wise words, and they’ve repeatedly proven themselves to be true over the course of my career. I’ve often found that knowing the right thing to do in any given situation is only as valuable as my will to do it. That means courage has been necessary for every meaningful life or business decision I’ve ever made.

But courage is about more than plowing ahead blindly when confronted with a challenge. It’s also about the willingness to look closely at those challenges before leaping into action, especially when they intimidate us. This requires curiosity, which is a special type of courage all by itself.

Asking questions is more often a sign of enthusiasm than reluctance

I asked a lot of questions when I was young. Whenever my parents or teachers at school showed me how to do something, from pruning vines on my family’s concord grape farm to solving algebra problems in math class, I wanted to know why each step in the process mattered. Why was it necessary? How did it move me closer to the goal I was trying to achieve? Were there other, potentially more efficient ways of getting there?

One thing I learned very quickly from this was that most adults are short on time. My parents were, and still are, wonderful, patient people who made every effort to answer my questions. My teachers did the best they could. But when you’re trying to deliver a curriculum to a classroom of 20 or 30 students, you can’t always afford to stop and answer a dozen enthusiastic inquiries from the same overachiever in the front row. I was told more than once that I was overthinking things; that I simply had to follow the instructions I had been given instead of questioning the methods behind everything.

On some of these occasions, I even got the sense that my propensity for asking questions was being perceived as a kind of hesitancy to engage with problems. Some people seemed to think I was asking questions just to waste time and avoid getting started — when in reality, I was passionate about the subject matter and trying to learn as much as I could so that I could do my work properly.

Formal training can blunt curiosity if you aren’t careful

These early classroom experiences didn’t sour me on the concept of education. In fact, I later spent over a decade working for the University of Washington, where I developed a SaaS system eventually licensed by over 20 universities across the country and founded the DRIVE (Data Reporting Information and Visualization Exchange) Conference to drive new innovations in reporting and analytics.

I’ve always believed strongly in the value of training, mentorship and formal study. But I also believe that it isn’t enough to sit in a classroom and let others tell you what to think or do. If that’s all you ever do, you’ll never learn to innovate; you’ll only ever learn to follow orders. Education isn’t something that just happens to you. Acquiring skills and knowledge is an active process that only begins when you make a personal commitment to continuously challenge yourself.

So starting in my youth, I supplemented my education by creating opportunities to teach myself. I read every book I could get my hands on. I turned the garage of my first home into a workshop where I could tinker — first with simple mechanical systems, and then later with computer hardware and software.

That experience made it possible for me to build the SaaS system I mentioned above, which led to acquiring further experience in areas like product concept development, license negotiation and partner development. These are key competencies that I employ every day as the CEO of PhoneBurner and ARMOR®. But I never would have honed them without taking the initiative to learn on my own.

It’s not always easy to be curious — but it’s always worth it

Curiosity is a form of bravery because it requires you to take risks. Asking questions in school is a risk because it makes you vulnerable; it requires you to admit to yourself and others that you don’t know everything. Spending your spare evenings and weekends alone in your workshop instead of out with friends is a risk because you’re investing time and energy in tasks with an uncertain payoff while other people are enjoying themselves.

But this kind of bravery is rewarded more often than not. When you admit that you don’t know everything, you make yourself more open to new knowledge. When you seek that knowledge out yourself instead of solely depending on others to provide it, you always learn something new and valuable. Success validates your efforts, but even failure shows you what not to do next time. Every step forward or setback is new information if you have the courage to be curious about what you’re doing and why it matters.

The poet Maya Angelou once claimed that courage is the most important virtue — because without courage, it becomes impossible to practice any other virtue consistently.

These are incredibly wise words, and they’ve repeatedly proven themselves to be true over the course of my career. I’ve often found that knowing the right thing to do in any given situation is only as valuable as my will to do it. That means courage has been necessary for every meaningful life or business decision I’ve ever made.

But courage is about more than plowing ahead blindly when confronted with a challenge. It’s also about the willingness to look closely at those challenges before leaping into action, especially when they intimidate us. This requires curiosity, which is a special type of courage all by itself.