(Especially if you’re from a small island with big ideas)
There’s a name you probably don’t know: Damon Albarn.
But you do know his voice.
He’s the guy behind Blur. Massive Attack. And most famously? The animated band Gorillaz.
Back in 1998, no one knew what they were looking at when Gorillaz dropped.
Cartoon characters with real voices? Live concerts using projected avatars? Interviews where the lead singer played the role of a fictional band member?
People didn’t get it.
But now?
K-pop’s K/DA performs as holographic champions in League of Legends.
Major Lazer is a global phenomenon.
AI influencers are sharing their “day-in-the-life.”
Dead celebrities are performing posthumous concerts using digital resurrection.
Damon was just early.
And that’s the point.
Being early feels like being wrong.
Until the world catches up.
And even then… most people forget who planted the first seed.
Imagination Isn’t the Problem — Reality Is
Leonardo da Vinci dreamed of machines that still haven’t been built.
Nikola Tesla imagined a wireless, electrified world before we had basic electricity.
Ideas? Infinite.
Execution? Constrained.
Why?
Because context matters.
And if you’re from the Caribbean — like I am — this next part will hurt:
Even if you had the next Airbnb, the next Uber, or the next Facebook…
you couldn’t build it.
Not because you’re not smart enough.
But because the infrastructure just isn’t there.
- Payment processing? Too slow, too expensive.
- Data access? You’ll be forced to build the database yourself.
- Research? You’ll start from scratch. No shortcuts.
- Funding? There’s no investor ecosystem like in San Francisco or New York.
It’s not pessimism. It’s physics.
Before you build the house, you have to lay the road to the land.
Before you disrupt the market, you have to create the damn market.
You don’t just launch a tech startup in the Caribbean.
You build the scaffolding that makes launching possible in the first place.
So What Do You Do When You’re Trapped in a Small Space With Big Ideas?
Let me level with you:
- Migrating isn’t easy.
- Podcasts don’t tell you the full story.
- Visas are expensive.
- Living abroad is a mental and financial hurricane.
So what’s the alternative?
You jump on a plane and visit.
You go see what scale looks like.
Not in a YouTube video. Not in a Google search.
With your own eyes.
You walk past buildings in New York that blot out the sun.
You see factories that sprawl for acres.
You visit data centers, startup campuses, conferences.
You feel the size.
You breathe the ambition.
Because here’s the thing nobody tells you:
Your brain doesn’t understand scale unless it has felt it.
You’ve been trying to squeeze a beach ball through a sewing needle.
No wonder you feel stuck.
You don’t need to downsize your dreams.
You need to upsize your playground.
Being a Pioneer Sucks (Until It Doesn’t)
If you’re ahead of your time, there’s no map.
There are no footsteps to follow.
No how-to video. No mentor to hold your hand.
You will look like a lunatic.
You will be misunderstood.
You will have to believe before there’s any evidence.
That’s the price of vision.
Walt Disney dreamed of EPCOT — a city of the future.
He bought the land. Started laying infrastructure.
He died before it happened.
And to this day, it still hasn’t.
James Cameron had the idea for Avatar — but the tech didn’t exist.
So what did he do?
He invented it.
This is what visionaries do.
They build in the dark, hoping the light catches up.
A Message to Caribbean Entrepreneurs:
Stop Thinking Island. Start Thinking Planet.
I’m not asking you to abandon home.
I’m asking you to stop shrinking to fit it.
You don’t just need to think big.
You need to live big.
If your idea is massive, give it room to breathe.
If your dreams are global, stop feeding them crumbs of local validation.
The world needs what you’re imagining.
And your imagination needs the space to stretch out.
And if you’re sitting on something big and can’t find the words — email me.
I help people shape ideas that are too early for most.
Because one day, someone will look back and say:
“They were ahead of their time. And thank God they didn’t wait for permission.”
