Toronto Entrepreneur

If you’re in an academic environment, you probably have wondered from time to time whether more IQ would help you along the way. It obviously depends a lot on the discipline you’re in but there are many cases where you’re right and having a higher IQ would help. A startup is different.

Having a better IQ will definitely help in a startup and is crucial if your startup relies on sophisticated algorithms such as Idee, a Toronto based startup which specializes in image recognition. Idee has recently come up with TinEye, a search engine for images online. Not every startup’s technology is as sophisticated as Idee’s though and technically speaking, you can get smarter over time but you cannot really increase your IQ. Increase your EQ instead.

I believe if you’re starting a startup, having a better EQ over an IQ will really go a longer way. Understanding social relations and being able to connect to people will really take you a long way in the startup world. Being able to think on your feet, will help you take long leaps. Those who can think well on their feet can close a deal a lot better and convince someone to join their team a lot easier. I have just started reading How to win friends and influence people but this book has been recommended to me by over 5 people and it definitely is a fantastic start to getting better at social relations. You can increase your EQ.

The beauty of EQ is that you can definitely increase it over time. If you like to increase your EQ, try to be more sociable and make this a mission for yourself. Every time you find someone new and interesting try to figure out their strengths and make sure when you walk away from them you can at least name one thing that they could be really good at. More importantly keep in touch with people who impress you and try to get to know them better. I am against keeping in touch with someone who might be of some use to you at some point in your life. I think there are enough interesting people out there that you can find people who are actually someone you’d like to be around, so try to keep them close. Remember every social interaction you have, is an opportunity to build a relationship and increase your EQ so target your efforts towards your goal. Email, tweet, status update on facebook, photo update on flickr, blog post, comment on a blog post are all various forms of social interaction these days. Never lose sight of your objective and use these tools to reach your goals.

Be the dumbest person in the circle of your friends. You definitely aren’t dumb, but you don’t want to be the smartest person in your circles of friends. Surround yourself with people who are smarter than you and learn from them. Don’t hate, appreciate. It’s not always that easy to be surrounded by people who are smarter than you. You might feel inferior and not up to par with them. A trick that I have learned over time to make myself interesting to the rest of the people is to learn something from one friend and apply my learnings to another friend. When people see you do something that impresses them, they usually associate that quality to you and therefore you look smart to them. And the beauty of this exercise is that you’re not immitating anyone, you actually have learned that skill. Having older friends is usually very helpful as well.

If you have an older friend or sibling, try to spend more time with them. Try to be part of their circle of friends. You can learn a lot from their mistakes and if they’re kind enough, they can give you a lot of priceless advise. Let them know what you’re planning to do and ask for their advise. People in this country are dying to give you their opinion and if you listen hard enough, you can learn good pointers. Don’t forget though, whichever of the above approaches you take, never lose sight of your objective; starting the next big Canadian startup

Yours truly,

Rokham Fard