Page 61 - Entrepreneur-November 2018

→ STILL NOT LOST
Basir’s childhood
invention, the remote
control you can’t lose.

The Childhood Ideas That Stuck

by Mossab Otman Basir, managing partner, Leo Group

s a kid, I helped my father reformat computers for a lab service stamp officially dated the idea—proof I had it first.
he started at Ontario’s University of Guelph. I unscrewed Today I have a better sense of business. I’ve created eight start-
cases of old clone computers to upgrade memory slots ups—including media companies, apps, a restaurant menu aggrega-
and graphics cards, or added a 56k modem to the board. tor, an analytics platform for restaurants, and, most recently, an AI
He could have done it faster without me; I know that now. music service for cars called Houdini. But I rely on the instincts I
But he was allowing me to see how things worked. honed as a kid. I still have those letters to myself. They’re scattered
This was only the beginning of his message to me: First, around—some in a box of childhood things I’ve kept, and others
A understand. Then, create. He is an inventor and inspired among my business files, as seeds of ideas I might one day return to.
the way I think. Like so many kids, I had a healthy imagination and They blur the lines between my childhood and my adult ideation.
came up with all sorts of ideas. Whenever I’d share one at the dinner My old inventions also continually remind me of the lessons from
table, my dad would drill deep, asking me questions that helped shape my father. He insisted that my ideas were worth pursuing, and he
my vision. I conceived of a toaster that was preloaded with bread, a taught me that discipline and commitment were required to turn
fridge that could make its own grocery list, a robot lawn mower, a them into real-life solutions. I remember him becoming stern when
remote control that could never get lost. (I even built a prototype for I’d blurt out an idea as if I had already solved the problem. To have
that last one, which you see above; we hit every RadioShack in town to an idea and then not do anything with it was simply not allowed in
get radio transmitters and receivers, resistors, diodes, buttons, and our house. That was for good reason, I’ve come to learn: The real
LEDs.) Our conversations would always end with him asking me to distance between an idea and a solution is in the rigor and the
draft what he called “a poor man’s patent.” We didn’t have money back commitment and the passion to actually bring it to life. That’s what PHOTOGR APH COURTESY OF MOSSAB OTMAN BASIR
then, so I’d write the idea on paper and mail it to myself so the postal continues to drive me.

WHAT INSPIRES YOU?
Tell us about a story, person, object, or something else that pushes you forward, and we may include it in a future issue. And we may make you
photograph or illustrate it, too. Email INSPIRE@ENTREPRENEUR.COM with the subject line “WHAT INSPIRES ME.”

128 / ENTREPRENEUR.COM / November 2018