I think where is the opportunity the
opportunity lie always lies in the place
where people complain some people sit
there complained you think if I can
solve that complaint that’s the
opportunity
[Music]
generally speaking you should resist the
temptation of having too many features
it’s all about either solving a problem
or providing a value to a user if you
have to decide if you’re going to be a
slow growth company or get big fast
company because any time you try to
straddle those two lines painful things
happen to you and I can’t stress this
enough choosing your partners
it’s got to be maybe the most important
decision you’ll ever make whether you
know personally and love or otherwise in
business you can change your idea you
can pivot your company you can’t change
your partners without starting over and
so actually so many people rushing into
these relationships I mean you should
really give that a lot of thought this
is something that hopefully will last
years don’t solicit feedback on your
product your idea or your business just
for validation purposes be really
careful about that
you want to tell the people that can
help move your idea forward but if
you’re just looking to your friend
co-worker husband wife for validation be
careful because out of love and concern
a lot of people will express some
concerns and it can stop a lot of
multi-million dollar ideas right in
their tracks in the beginning
and if you’re really trying to achieve
something than so to say okay here’s my
vision and I’d like to say be obstinate
about your vision but be really flexible
about your tactics what does that mean
it’s sort of like think big act small
what that means is it’s important to
have a vision of where you’re trying to
go how you get there is the series of
experiment now you can call them
failures when they don’t work but
they’re learning experiments where you
try things see what works try the next
thing
everybody thought we were crazy we
probably were crazy but having a dream
like that that resonates with people
changing the world achieving something
big it turns out that’s what pulls you
through the hard times every company has
a heart as hard times every company has
setbacks and it’s having that that that
mountain in the distance that you’re
trying to scale that is what gets
everybody through we need to focus on
solutions like ideas all of us here are
really creative and did some of this
loads of ideas throughout the day and we
become really excited about that
let’s do we should start a company
around that so that when you actually go
to the other side where you talk to over
you you know find out what someone
actually a problem a problem that they
have installed that is is when you know
real value comes out I would say that
the lesson learned for me to anybody
else out there interested in starting a
business is please find something you’re
passionate about because it’s so much
work it’s so much time it’s so much
effort but if the subject matter is
something that you you genuinely love to
be involved with it’s it’s not going to
be that big of a drag and it’s not going
to be that big much work it’s going to
be incredibly exciting and rewarding
because to your point you’ll feel like
you’re living your the life that you’re
meant to live we get to create any
company we want right we get to create
the reason for its existence we get to
create the rules the game and who we
hire and how we hire them and who can
stay and who can’t stay it’s beautiful
and so I just would encourage everyone
that as we all contemplate life to try
to question the assumptions that we live
by and the default options that are
given to us and expand our thinking to
wonder what we really can’t do with our
lives
so today you should think okay my
co-founders do we do we cover a lot of
surface area do we have different skill
sets and is it somebody that that I
trust fundamentally and that’s those are
really really really important questions
to ask yourself because it’s so they
give a really strong foundation to go
forward if you’re going to start your
own thing you know maybe you have a
grand grand vision of like all the
different features it’s going to have
all the different you know revenue lines
you’re going to do and you know keep
keep that vision but do one piece of
that first and do it really really
really well it’s so much better to do a
few things well than many things poorly
people really love simplicity so if you
look at the problems with large software
like Microsoft Office every feature in
Microsoft Office somebody wanted at some
time but what happens is over 10 or 20
years the thing gets so huge it’s
overwhelming so the discipline of great
product design is to figure out what are
the important cases for the long term
and to have the discipline to say no to
some things that are good it’s easy to
say no to things that are bad but great
product design is saying no to some
things that are good
and I find even with myself that it’s
really hard to do a Minimum Viable
Product as minimum that you’re
constantly thinking no no it really has
to have this other partner really has to
have this and then you over build and
then you have to unbilled and rebuild
which is very disappointing so doing a
Minimum Viable Product is really
important and it’s even more minimum
than you think it is you can’t ever sort
of balance two completely contradictory
things as a means of hedging you have to
decide what are you going to believe in
and put all of your energy behind that
and that’s that’s the those are the
kinds of strategic decisions and
trade-offs that you make every day as an
entrepreneur and it’s important that you
create the level of clarity and
conviction to go after an opportunity
that isn’t hedging you know lots of
different ideas or lots of different
approaches because that’s the surest way
that you’ll never be good at sort of
anything so there are a number of
decisions that we make every day and on
a product side there are billion
different features that we could make so
the hard part is really choosing which
ones to focus on which ones to build and
you only have a finite number that you
can actually execute on so for us a lot
of it is just listening to the community
and more importantly understanding you
know what features they’re asking for
but why are they asking for these
specific things what’s the root problem
they’re trying to solve or Golden’s are
trying to achieve and a lot of that is
based on actual behaviors so not just
what they say but what they do
you’re really trying to solve a new
problem in a different way you have to
come to problems with beginner’s mind
right not knowing something can be a
very powerful tool in to accomplishing
it because you don’t know that it’s not
possible that’s what doing a startup is
not realizing that something is
impossible in doing it anyway because if
you build something for yourself you
build something that you love but you
think it’s efficiently happening if you
make something that you love there’s
probably not a billion people in the
world that love as well
and what the leaders look like first and
foremost leaders always have a herd
people always like following leaders
maybe it’s their charisma maybe it’s
their personality maybe it’s because
they’re so in belief of what they say
that you have the ability to convince
people to buy into your vision not just
for a paycheck it’s something more than
that because great leaders they don’t we
have a herd they fight for the herd and
the herd knows that that’s your job as
entrepreneurs these are not employees
that do your bidding
these are partners that you should bring
into your space and you should be
treated like that and they should be
treated like that with respect and with
dignity
larger more established entities can’t
move as quickly as you can and success
and scale and size all fight against
this and I would encourage you for the
longest possible time as you sort of
start your own companies to look for
ways to stay agile values are who you
are or you don’t have personal values
professional values it’s really what you
stand for and again there’s no black and
white answer here there’s no right or
wrong value but if you’re building a
team or building an organization you
want to understand your identity and
then it mostly impacts hiring it impacts
the way that you decide to add people to
your team otherwise you can become very
very split in terms of what your mission
is so it’s about this movement forward
now what you own not your education or
your pedigree not pile of resources you
might have at hand not your network just
going after this thing and knowing that
as you do that you’ll find what you need
you’ll make your way over around and
through and I think the best
entrepreneurs that I’ve met are able to
do that because they have the strong
vision and they know that it’s worth it
to keep moving forward if you’re going
to have a breakout startup really going
to think about how you can innovate on
distribution not just product right
and the biggest mistake I see these days
that I see brilliant sort of founders
who are brilliant product people and
they’ve really thought about their
product and really thought about how
they’re going to make it work and then
they launch their product and it’s like
crickets chirping no one no one’s using
it and they’re kind of flummoxed as to
what to do they’ve never really spent
time thinking about it and they just
kind of assume that it hey if you build
a good product everyone’s going to find
it and the reality is it’s a big let out
there and that’s not really true
you know I think what I see right now is
people wrap up their sense of success
and identity with their profits and
fundraising and comparing themselves
against how their peers are doing I
think that’s really the wrong way to
look at things and it needs to kind of
non optimal health for instance I don’t
know if the valuations that companies
are getting today is necessarily healthy
for the company themselves and for us
again
you know our inability to raise capital
actually forced us to be very
disciplined in how we think about the
operational metrics of the company and
that’s allowed us to you know be pretty
successful so you know the most
important thing you can actually advise
yourself or anyone else nor your
mistakes what is your problem
you’re good at some things just go to
that the number one thing you didn’t
worry about is am i doing
for somebody aspiring to you know take
things to the next level or to even
surpass their wildest dreams there’s
always gonna have to be an element of
luck but I think more important is
putting yourself in a business that can
be ubiquitous that can that really
doesn’t have limits because otherwise
there’s always going to be a grind to it
but if the business if it can’t be
something that you can visualize every
business using or every consumer using
it’s going to be tough to scale to be
big enough or they have the perceived
value the two things we really zero in
on a people are you know two things they
sound simple they end up being very
difficult courage and genius courage is
the one we talk about a lot because it’s
the one that people can learn you know
courage courage which is to say not
giving up in the face of adversity you
know just being absolutely determined to
succeed you know is something that you
can you can like force yourself to do it
could be very painful you can force
yourself to do it the genius part is a
little bit hard to force yourself to do
you know courage without genius might
not get you where you need to go but
genius without courage almost certainly
won’t
I think that’s hope you always have to
ask them say do you believe in the
context of what you’re doing you can
leave that there’s really they’re there
I think you forgot to write a product
package or light way to reach users and
you can leave that then you know keep
scrapping because usually goes away
if you don’t love it you won’t make it
through the long period of pain that is
inevitable so make sure that you take
care of yourself during the process make
sure that you take care of your mental
health your physical health while you’re
doing it because a long road it also
makes the biggest thing and I still
built them from the thirds and majority
of my time I’m tiring nothing has the
impact of the right people around the
bases and you can’t manage your way out
of a bad team so many things go wrong
when you’re starting a company and often
nothing people ask you know what
mistakes should you avoid making and you
know my answer the question is don’t
even bother trying to avoid mistakes
because you’re going to make tons of
these things right and the the important
thing is actually learning quickly from
whatever mistakes you make and not
giving up right and I mean there are
things every single year of Facebook’s
existence that could have killed us are
made it so that it just seemed like
moving forward and making a lot of
progress just seemed intractable but you
just kind of bounce back and you learn
and nothing is impossible you just have
to kind of keep running through the
walls and you can do that in a good way
in a bad way but hopefully if you try to
get people to motivate why they’re doing
something and their way of thinking you
know the worst thing you can end up with
it’s a situation where you get told well
this is the way it’s always been
that’s the worst ever that’s a
non-answer instead ask yourself you know
given everything you have today is there
a way we can make this better
people say you have to have a lot of
passion for what you’re doing and it’s
totally true and the reason is is
because it’s so hard that if you don’t
any rational person would give up it’s
really hard and you have to do it over a
sustained period of time so if you don’t
love it
you’re not having fun doing it you don’t
really love it you’re going to give up
see people that look for great ideas to
make money are nearly as successful as
those who say okay what I really love to
do what am i excited about what I know
something about you know what’s kind of
interesting and compelling it’s very
rewarding if you let them something make
the difference and yeah it’s a little
bit harder but I think I think the
passion that one might bring with it
brings so much more energy to that that
you’re more likely to speed
[Music]
you have to have an emotional investment
in what you do if you don’t love what
you’re doing
[Music]
failure is pretty much guaranteed
success is not guaranteed by any means
but failure is much more likely if you
don’t love what you do if you know
exactly what you want to be you need to
spend as much time with people that are
actually that already do something
you’re very passionate about and don’t
try to chase what is kind of the hot
passion of the day and so when we’re
coming up with ideas you know we always
ask ourselves what kind of new market is
this creating and then also what what
part of my day and and what problem is
it solving and so I’ve gone as far as
taking an entire catalogue of my day
from the moment I like open my eyes and
writing down every single thing I do and
then asking myself like is there
something here
if you’re not coming up with 10 ideas a
day that’s why I have this thing I’m not
coming up when I’m filling up this page
every single day then my idea muscle
will atrophy and I started this in 2001
and I still do it every single day like
you have to come up with ideas every
single day or the idea muscle atrophy
the good news is after about six months
of doing that you’re like a machine like
people get surprised at how many ideas
you can just have anywhere and so some
of the best target advice I got is from
Paul Graham that’s the guy who talked a
lot about some scalable strategies for
user acquisition at say for example you
helping each user personally sure that
means scale as a group with very large
class size but when the set up is just
starting out it really helps you have an
advantageous small amended
– just go and do it try learn from it
you can I will fail at something that
the learning community they cannot be
and don’t let people who may respect and
believe know what they’re talking about
don’t let your you
because often they will family can be
done and
[Music]
when it comes to changing the world what
I learned from Steve Jobs is if you
believe in a Macintosh if you believe in
iPhone iPod iPad if you believe enough
then you will see it because other
people will believe in it other people
will create software other people will
create products so you need to foster
the belief in what you are dreaming so
that it becomes a reality which is very
different than saying I don’t expect
anybody to believe it until I see it you
need people to believe it before they
can see it don’t necessarily think that
you have to have the homerun in the huge
Apple computer on your first start I
spent a long time in my life with skills
just building little devices for fun for
fun is one of the key things is that
drives you to think and think and think
and make it better and better and better
than you ever would if you’re doing it
for a company build things at first for
yourself that you would want the crazy
busy
you go through initially work day and
weekend it’s really hard work I’ve
always thought that each person invented
himself for whatever reasons through
whatever circumstance through whatever
he has gone through that we are each a
figment of our own imagination
[Music]
you know I often say this would be 12
people at the table but and we’re having
a discussion about something and
something may turn up it could be an
opportunity half the people don’t
recognize this an opportunity a lot of
people are comfortable in what they’re
doing they don’t want change people
actually get into a zone where they’re
very comfortable so they don’t like the
idea of risk so how do you start a
business with no money and the worst
conditions that your backer doesn’t want
to give you a dime
what do you do get ready for a lot of
rejection and at the same exact time do
the things others don’t want to do do
what’s necessary do what it takes no
matter what it is and try not to hurt
anybody along the way develop the habits
you’ve got the brainpower got the energy
but develop the habits of success
from day one I just never tried to hide
that I was the girl in my apartment with
the red backpack like this is Who I am
and I find that people end up rooting
for you and opening more doors if you’re
really honest early on some people start
businesses and try to come across that
they’re much bigger than they are
because they feel like that’s the only
way they’re going to be taken seriously
but if you know your products great and
you know why you need it you don’t have
to apologize for being out of your home
or your apartment or being small I
worked 24 hours a day seven days a week
and I kid that’s what I cared about I
cared about solving problems being
successful anytime an obstacle presented
itself I used it to my advantage
made it work and I never heard the word
know if I heard the word no it meant
maybe then I made maybe yes in the end
luck plays a very important part in how
successful you are but the harder you
work and the longer you work the luckier
you’re going to be
you have the power to just I’m you can
sit down you can code something you can
try it doesn’t matter to you whether
some things it’s a good idea or not
because you have the power to go put
that on line and you know see whether it
resonates and connects with people stay
focused on on the stuff that that you’re
that you’re providing to your users
you’re going to make a ton of mistakes
it doesn’t matter you don’t get judged
by the mistakes people don’t remember
those years they remember the things
that you did they were good basically a
theory is we’re all born thinking like
ah snores you know like when we crawl
and we thought and we fall you know
we’re trying to walk we figure it out
entrepreneurs always figure out you’re
born thinking like an option or that you
know what I’m going to figure this out
regardless and I’m going to keep going
now often the challenge is families and
friends convinced you not to be an
entrepreneur because when you say I’m
going to change the world moving the
most famous person I’m going to save the
seals they say don’t do that you it
didn’t happen before it’s never happy
you’re going to you’re going to you’re
going to fail you can embarrass us
I put the limiters on it they push the
limit they put the blinders on you but
true entrepreneurs will just keep
figuring it out and you know what
everybody wants to hear what they
already believe to be true and so the
last thing they want to hear is an
original idea that contradicts their
belief system so it’s very hard to even
bring that kind of stuff up but those
are the things those are the only things
things that you believe that everybody
around you doesn’t believe when you’re
right that create real value in the
world everything else people already
know there is no value created it’s just
business as usual so it’s so important
to think for yourself
I think my biggest tip is just get
started I meet a lot of young
entrepreneurs who have good ideas or bad
ideas or some ideas and you don’t want
to be a person who just talks and talks
and talks you have to actually go and do
something and don’t worry about if it’s
the perfect thing or not there is this
myth of entrepreneurship that you’ll
have the one genius idea and suddenly
everything falls into place it doesn’t
work like that it’s a hard slog there’s
a lot of things to do wrong a lot of
things you’ll be right the sooner you
get started the sooner you’ll get
somewhere I don’t have same
opportunities you did yeah you do you do
you have ever been to opportunity that I
did and so you can go out there and do
it somebody said well what was your goal
go make money people need to understand
that we cannot take a breath that we
have competitors who want to take the
food off of our table we have an economy
in which is 8 percent unemployment here
9 percent unemployment in the US and
Starbucks Coffee company is not
something you have to have it is a
discretionary purchase and so the
mentality that you need in a business
today Starbucks or otherwise to build
sustainable success in enduring success
is you have to eradicate the human
behavior of relaxing the human behavior
of feeling like we have won and what I
have said in the last two years of
Starbucks is there’s no celebration
there’s no victory left we haven’t done
squat
there’s always going to have to be an
element of luck but I think more
important is putting yourself in a
business that can be ubiquitous that can
that really doesn’t have limits because
otherwise there’s always going to be a
grind to it but if the business if it
can’t be something that you can
visualize every business using or every
consumer using it’s going to be tough to
scale to be big enough or to have the
perceived value to get you to that
billionaire club what fear is stopping
you in your tracks and burning the soles
of your feet
what is conquering that fear whatever it
is that keeps you from being what the
creator intended for you
what if you could unleash everything
great in your life would you do it would
you say yes to that new companies
generally shouldn’t exist existing
companies are usually pretty good at
what they do and so for a new company to
exist it not only has to like you know
come into good you know going to
business in bring a product market but
it has to bring a product to market
that’s so much better than what already
exists that it punches through the sort
of status quo
I grew up under a premise go in an
industry that has a large profit margin
they’ll go in one that’s slim the one
one that’s large take what you’ve got
your assets or your energy your assets
or your willingness to just not be told
no the harder it is the tougher it is
the bigger the challenge to get in the
bigger the opportunity behind the
opportunities behind are endless don’t
allow any one friend family
acquaintances teachers whoever it is
don’t allow anyone to tell you that what
you are dreaming for yourself and your
family is not possible it is possible
don’t be one of those people 20 years
from now are going to be walking around
a nine-to-five job miserable and angry
and bitter to punish failure is yet
another way to encourage mediocrity
because mediocrity is what fearful
people will always settle for you know
one of the things that I tell people
when they ask me for advice about what
they should do when they’re wanting to
start their own business or take a next
step in their career is to actually
start small I think a lot of people try
to they kind of psyched themselves out
or they get too overwhelmed with how big
something can get but the truth is you
really just got to start small and you
got to prove it before you scale it
I like to see people I think it’s really
important even if it’s ten minutes I
hate all this new world of people are
talking so I like the idea of seeing
people I think you get a very different
view and looking somebody’s are you you
know in a second whether it’s right I
mean I think these people they’re like
eight yards away the desk and they’re
busy be some kind talk to them why is
emailing each other because go have a
conversation what happened before email
people spoke hello good morning how are
you
Cubby’s like Google and I getting rich
and user-generated content they’re
getting rich on the content of companies
like Viacom we’re not going to put put
up with that we’re not going to put up
with people taking our product and not
paying but they want a product they can
have it at the right price
since it really didn’t pan out and yet
some things will come through I use the
term gold gold rush rather than mania
because I am a firm believer that what’s
going on at the heart of it it is very
important also there is gold may be very
very deep and may be buried in different
places than people think it is but it it
it’s a great thing this is an area where
our country is way out in front
you take almost every aspect of what
this entails the fiber-optic switches
the software the chips the content
coming from media companies and the
opportunity to set global standards and
have mobile markets every country I go
to the biggest concern I hear is how far
ahead is the u.s. of my country well
since we don’t have deregulation in a
sense we’re not really at the starting
line
in and so I’m certainly a fan of moving
ahead aggressively a company is simply a
group of people and as a leader of
people you have to be a great listener
and you have to be a great motivator you
have to be very good at praising and
looking for the best in people and you
know people are no different from
flowers if you water flowers they
flourish if you praise people they
flourish and and that’s a critical
attribute of a leader now Apple
fortunately is one of the half-a-dozen
best brands in the whole world right up
there with Nike Disney Coke Sony it is
one of the Great’s of the grapes not
just in this country but all around the
globe and but even a great brand needs
investment and caring
I’m going to put the vast majority of my
energy attention and dollars into
building a great product or service and
put a smaller amount into shouting about
it marketing it because I know if I
build a great product or service my
customers will tell each other I mean
you have to mix in some patience with
that the education it’s so much more
widely available there now so many more
people both here in the valley and
around the world who now know how to
start a company and that yeahmaybe
sounds obvious but like it when I
arrived in the valley in 1994 like I
went to the bookstore and I tried to
find a book on how they start a tech
company and like it was a long and
lonely trip through the bookshelves like
there was very little I mean luckily
Andy’s Andy’s book was there but Andy’s
book was about how to run in self which
it wasn’t monopoly
I didn’t couldn’t really get a lot of
benefit out of that my startup at the
time and so like the resources just
simply didn’t exist right and today
you’ve got you know it’s everything
you’ve got a lot of it comes out of
Stanford so like this is the CS 180 just
the CS 183 course of Stanford the
various people have taught Peter Todd
and that moment is taught like and then
the fact that those classes are not just
accessible to people at Stanford they’re
accessible to people all around the
world and there are people all around
the world watching right those are those
videos all the time learning how to
start companies if you’re thinking about
starting a company it therefore really
stresses an idea and again I’ll use my
computer Kiel and the shoulder thing
channel this through something peter
says I think is really relevant which is
a lot of founders think about what it
takes to get the second person in the
company right the second founder of the
second engineer right at the third
person the fourth person he says that’s
no longer the challenge like everybody
wants to start a company and so
everybody can get together two or three
or four people to start a company
he said the challenge is how do you get
engineer number 20 because engineer
number 20 right if they’re in this
ecosystem they could go start their own
company and so how do you convince
somebody to join your company as
engineer number 20 with a tiny
percentage of equity right and and not
being in charge as compared to starting
their own company getting all the equity
and being in charge now one of the
things you do is you tell them they’re
going to have the same problem but then
they respond to you that you also have
that problem and then you sit there and
stare at each other
awkwardly so so that that’s the thing so
so what you have right now is you just
have you have you have just a very very
large number of seed funding companies
that are experiments and their
experiments on their ideas but more
importantly their experiments on who has
the will and the drive and the
horsepower right in the salesmanship and
everything else that goes into
recruiting right and so and every guy
should Sam Altman gave a talk today he
said if you can wave a magic wand you
would combine a lot of these companies
together to get critical mass but
mergers between startups almost never
happened for a variety of reasons and so
so it really it makes this sort of
acuteness this recruiting problem is a
very acute problem by the way you think
about it then as M patients to think
about it as a recruiting problem which
is we have to get really good at
recruiting but it’s not really that as
much as it’s like okay what about my
company is going to be so spectacular
and so special and so unusual and so
distinct and differentiated that it’s
going to be able to easily hire engineer
number 20 away from starting his or her
own company and so to me it basically
translates into basically we just we
have to get better like you just have to
get better you have to be able to
compete you have to be able to win in
this really brutal initial battle the
good news is the company’s coming out of
that sort of churning kind of you know
sort of you know sort of snake bit of
competition the companies that come out
of that are really strong because they
had to be not to come through it but it
it is tougher and it is the other side
of how easy it’s become to start to
start the companies
again this is a it’s again another
version of this market so you always on
you know it’s again even you have a lot
of big markets where you have sort of
inch deep mile wide type type products
and and payments is always sort of a
version of this where where one of the
big challenges is you know how do you
get the first people to use your product
how do you get the people to use your
your new payment system for example and
so it has to be really valuable the
first people who are using it and so you
want to find things that are you know
which is a very intense need you know
PayPal was like well the power sellers
how to use checks if you get the money
instantly so you should cut the time
from seven to ten days to two instantly
that was worth that was worth quite a
bit in many other contexts you already
have payment systems that work as that
work pretty well or very well and if you
have something that’s perfect that’s
only a small Delta – very well and you
know you always you always say that you
shouldn’t let the perfect be the enemy
of the very good I think in business is
often the opposite where in practice but
very good will prevent the perfect from
ever arising so if you have things that
are working very well and you have
something that’s going to be
theoretically perfect that’s often a
really bad idea you know I think it’s
kind of in life a lot of times when
people are down they look at how to
survive while they’re down but stay at
that survival mode long term opposed to
I’m gonna learn how to survive right now
and make it but I’m immediately going to
work towards the next step the next step
and the next step closer I mean so how
did you learn how did you learn how to
be a successful entrepreneur well I
don’t think it’s learning how to be a
successful entrepreneur I think it’s
just being able to do something and know
that you have that ability to do it you
see the human race has the ability all
of you do to do 10 50 times what you’re
doing right now well if you realize you
have that ability as you go along you
find obstacles but you overcome them or
you go right around them like water
might go around them a little bit and
and that’s really it you look at what
assets you have it’s a little bit like
selling whether it’s a tangible product
whereas
servus it’s got to be the very best and
you put forth its features and then how
it benefits the customer well with
yourself personally you put forth the
features you have how these features
might benefit and if you have a product
and I’d love to share this with
everybody don’t ever go into the selling
business what do you have the greatest
service in the world or the greatest
product never go in there to sell your
product go in there to be in the reorder
business that’s kind of your mentality
that’s true yeah because you’re going to
sell it that’s where your focus is if
you want to be in the reorder business
even if it’s a one-time product whatever
you do is so good that they’ll want to
tell somebody else reorder themselves
right so that kind of helps along the
way if you have that mentality do unto
others as you would have others do unto
you that’s the basis for most religions
but they get sometimes carried away in
rites and rituals but that’s the core
value do unto others as you dev others
doing to you and then it’s the feeling
of knowing from how genuine you are and
because people don’t like to just listen
to people talk about themselves how
great they are they want to know
incorporate it to make them successful
also or do something a little different
and I think that’s very very important
make sure you choose you know when
you’re trying to decide whether or not
an idea is good enough to pursue or a
particular business is something you
want to want to go forward with make
sure that it’s the type of business that
when you’re standing in the shower it’s
the thing you want to think about for
the next 10 or 20 years try to do
something that you would want to do
anyway whether it’s it doesn’t
necessarily have to be a very successful
business because when you do decide to
become an entrepreneur and start a
business chances are it’s not going to
it’s not going to become like a
multimillion-dollar business so at we do
something that you love in the beginning
so that even if it fails you’d still
enjoyed it
opportunity lie always lies in the place
where people complain some people sit
there complained you think if I can
solve that complaint that’s the
opportunity
[Music]
generally speaking you should resist the
temptation of having too many features
it’s all about either solving a problem
or providing a value to a user if you
have to decide if you’re going to be a
slow growth company or get big fast
company because any time you try to
straddle those two lines painful things
happen to you and I can’t stress this
enough choosing your partners
it’s got to be maybe the most important
decision you’ll ever make whether you
know personally and love or otherwise in
business you can change your idea you
can pivot your company you can’t change
your partners without starting over and
so actually so many people rushing into
these relationships I mean you should
really give that a lot of thought this
is something that hopefully will last
years don’t solicit feedback on your
product your idea or your business just
for validation purposes be really
careful about that
you want to tell the people that can
help move your idea forward but if
you’re just looking to your friend
co-worker husband wife for validation be
careful because out of love and concern
a lot of people will express some
concerns and it can stop a lot of
multi-million dollar ideas right in
their tracks in the beginning
and if you’re really trying to achieve
something than so to say okay here’s my
vision and I’d like to say be obstinate
about your vision but be really flexible
about your tactics what does that mean
it’s sort of like think big act small
what that means is it’s important to
have a vision of where you’re trying to
go how you get there is the series of
experiment now you can call them
failures when they don’t work but
they’re learning experiments where you
try things see what works try the next
thing
everybody thought we were crazy we
probably were crazy but having a dream
like that that resonates with people
changing the world achieving something
big it turns out that’s what pulls you
through the hard times every company has
a heart as hard times every company has
setbacks and it’s having that that that
mountain in the distance that you’re
trying to scale that is what gets
everybody through we need to focus on
solutions like ideas all of us here are
really creative and did some of this
loads of ideas throughout the day and we
become really excited about that
let’s do we should start a company
around that so that when you actually go
to the other side where you talk to over
you you know find out what someone
actually a problem a problem that they
have installed that is is when you know
real value comes out I would say that
the lesson learned for me to anybody
else out there interested in starting a
business is please find something you’re
passionate about because it’s so much
work it’s so much time it’s so much
effort but if the subject matter is
something that you you genuinely love to
be involved with it’s it’s not going to
be that big of a drag and it’s not going
to be that big much work it’s going to
be incredibly exciting and rewarding
because to your point you’ll feel like
you’re living your the life that you’re
meant to live we get to create any
company we want right we get to create
the reason for its existence we get to
create the rules the game and who we
hire and how we hire them and who can
stay and who can’t stay it’s beautiful
and so I just would encourage everyone
that as we all contemplate life to try
to question the assumptions that we live
by and the default options that are
given to us and expand our thinking to
wonder what we really can’t do with our
lives
so today you should think okay my
co-founders do we do we cover a lot of
surface area do we have different skill
sets and is it somebody that that I
trust fundamentally and that’s those are
really really really important questions
to ask yourself because it’s so they
give a really strong foundation to go
forward if you’re going to start your
own thing you know maybe you have a
grand grand vision of like all the
different features it’s going to have
all the different you know revenue lines
you’re going to do and you know keep
keep that vision but do one piece of
that first and do it really really
really well it’s so much better to do a
few things well than many things poorly
people really love simplicity so if you
look at the problems with large software
like Microsoft Office every feature in
Microsoft Office somebody wanted at some
time but what happens is over 10 or 20
years the thing gets so huge it’s
overwhelming so the discipline of great
product design is to figure out what are
the important cases for the long term
and to have the discipline to say no to
some things that are good it’s easy to
say no to things that are bad but great
product design is saying no to some
things that are good
and I find even with myself that it’s
really hard to do a Minimum Viable
Product as minimum that you’re
constantly thinking no no it really has
to have this other partner really has to
have this and then you over build and
then you have to unbilled and rebuild
which is very disappointing so doing a
Minimum Viable Product is really
important and it’s even more minimum
than you think it is you can’t ever sort
of balance two completely contradictory
things as a means of hedging you have to
decide what are you going to believe in
and put all of your energy behind that
and that’s that’s the those are the
kinds of strategic decisions and
trade-offs that you make every day as an
entrepreneur and it’s important that you
create the level of clarity and
conviction to go after an opportunity
that isn’t hedging you know lots of
different ideas or lots of different
approaches because that’s the surest way
that you’ll never be good at sort of
anything so there are a number of
decisions that we make every day and on
a product side there are billion
different features that we could make so
the hard part is really choosing which
ones to focus on which ones to build and
you only have a finite number that you
can actually execute on so for us a lot
of it is just listening to the community
and more importantly understanding you
know what features they’re asking for
but why are they asking for these
specific things what’s the root problem
they’re trying to solve or Golden’s are
trying to achieve and a lot of that is
based on actual behaviors so not just
what they say but what they do
you’re really trying to solve a new
problem in a different way you have to
come to problems with beginner’s mind
right not knowing something can be a
very powerful tool in to accomplishing
it because you don’t know that it’s not
possible that’s what doing a startup is
not realizing that something is
impossible in doing it anyway because if
you build something for yourself you
build something that you love but you
think it’s efficiently happening if you
make something that you love there’s
probably not a billion people in the
world that love as well
and what the leaders look like first and
foremost leaders always have a herd
people always like following leaders
maybe it’s their charisma maybe it’s
their personality maybe it’s because
they’re so in belief of what they say
that you have the ability to convince
people to buy into your vision not just
for a paycheck it’s something more than
that because great leaders they don’t we
have a herd they fight for the herd and
the herd knows that that’s your job as
entrepreneurs these are not employees
that do your bidding
these are partners that you should bring
into your space and you should be
treated like that and they should be
treated like that with respect and with
dignity
larger more established entities can’t
move as quickly as you can and success
and scale and size all fight against
this and I would encourage you for the
longest possible time as you sort of
start your own companies to look for
ways to stay agile values are who you
are or you don’t have personal values
professional values it’s really what you
stand for and again there’s no black and
white answer here there’s no right or
wrong value but if you’re building a
team or building an organization you
want to understand your identity and
then it mostly impacts hiring it impacts
the way that you decide to add people to
your team otherwise you can become very
very split in terms of what your mission
is so it’s about this movement forward
now what you own not your education or
your pedigree not pile of resources you
might have at hand not your network just
going after this thing and knowing that
as you do that you’ll find what you need
you’ll make your way over around and
through and I think the best
entrepreneurs that I’ve met are able to
do that because they have the strong
vision and they know that it’s worth it
to keep moving forward if you’re going
to have a breakout startup really going
to think about how you can innovate on
distribution not just product right
and the biggest mistake I see these days
that I see brilliant sort of founders
who are brilliant product people and
they’ve really thought about their
product and really thought about how
they’re going to make it work and then
they launch their product and it’s like
crickets chirping no one no one’s using
it and they’re kind of flummoxed as to
what to do they’ve never really spent
time thinking about it and they just
kind of assume that it hey if you build
a good product everyone’s going to find
it and the reality is it’s a big let out
there and that’s not really true
you know I think what I see right now is
people wrap up their sense of success
and identity with their profits and
fundraising and comparing themselves
against how their peers are doing I
think that’s really the wrong way to
look at things and it needs to kind of
non optimal health for instance I don’t
know if the valuations that companies
are getting today is necessarily healthy
for the company themselves and for us
again
you know our inability to raise capital
actually forced us to be very
disciplined in how we think about the
operational metrics of the company and
that’s allowed us to you know be pretty
successful so you know the most
important thing you can actually advise
yourself or anyone else nor your
mistakes what is your problem
you’re good at some things just go to
that the number one thing you didn’t
worry about is am i doing
for somebody aspiring to you know take
things to the next level or to even
surpass their wildest dreams there’s
always gonna have to be an element of
luck but I think more important is
putting yourself in a business that can
be ubiquitous that can that really
doesn’t have limits because otherwise
there’s always going to be a grind to it
but if the business if it can’t be
something that you can visualize every
business using or every consumer using
it’s going to be tough to scale to be
big enough or they have the perceived
value the two things we really zero in
on a people are you know two things they
sound simple they end up being very
difficult courage and genius courage is
the one we talk about a lot because it’s
the one that people can learn you know
courage courage which is to say not
giving up in the face of adversity you
know just being absolutely determined to
succeed you know is something that you
can you can like force yourself to do it
could be very painful you can force
yourself to do it the genius part is a
little bit hard to force yourself to do
you know courage without genius might
not get you where you need to go but
genius without courage almost certainly
won’t
I think that’s hope you always have to
ask them say do you believe in the
context of what you’re doing you can
leave that there’s really they’re there
I think you forgot to write a product
package or light way to reach users and
you can leave that then you know keep
scrapping because usually goes away
if you don’t love it you won’t make it
through the long period of pain that is
inevitable so make sure that you take
care of yourself during the process make
sure that you take care of your mental
health your physical health while you’re
doing it because a long road it also
makes the biggest thing and I still
built them from the thirds and majority
of my time I’m tiring nothing has the
impact of the right people around the
bases and you can’t manage your way out
of a bad team so many things go wrong
when you’re starting a company and often
nothing people ask you know what
mistakes should you avoid making and you
know my answer the question is don’t
even bother trying to avoid mistakes
because you’re going to make tons of
these things right and the the important
thing is actually learning quickly from
whatever mistakes you make and not
giving up right and I mean there are
things every single year of Facebook’s
existence that could have killed us are
made it so that it just seemed like
moving forward and making a lot of
progress just seemed intractable but you
just kind of bounce back and you learn
and nothing is impossible you just have
to kind of keep running through the
walls and you can do that in a good way
in a bad way but hopefully if you try to
get people to motivate why they’re doing
something and their way of thinking you
know the worst thing you can end up with
it’s a situation where you get told well
this is the way it’s always been
that’s the worst ever that’s a
non-answer instead ask yourself you know
given everything you have today is there
a way we can make this better
people say you have to have a lot of
passion for what you’re doing and it’s
totally true and the reason is is
because it’s so hard that if you don’t
any rational person would give up it’s
really hard and you have to do it over a
sustained period of time so if you don’t
love it
you’re not having fun doing it you don’t
really love it you’re going to give up
see people that look for great ideas to
make money are nearly as successful as
those who say okay what I really love to
do what am i excited about what I know
something about you know what’s kind of
interesting and compelling it’s very
rewarding if you let them something make
the difference and yeah it’s a little
bit harder but I think I think the
passion that one might bring with it
brings so much more energy to that that
you’re more likely to speed
[Music]
you have to have an emotional investment
in what you do if you don’t love what
you’re doing
[Music]
failure is pretty much guaranteed
success is not guaranteed by any means
but failure is much more likely if you
don’t love what you do if you know
exactly what you want to be you need to
spend as much time with people that are
actually that already do something
you’re very passionate about and don’t
try to chase what is kind of the hot
passion of the day and so when we’re
coming up with ideas you know we always
ask ourselves what kind of new market is
this creating and then also what what
part of my day and and what problem is
it solving and so I’ve gone as far as
taking an entire catalogue of my day
from the moment I like open my eyes and
writing down every single thing I do and
then asking myself like is there
something here
if you’re not coming up with 10 ideas a
day that’s why I have this thing I’m not
coming up when I’m filling up this page
every single day then my idea muscle
will atrophy and I started this in 2001
and I still do it every single day like
you have to come up with ideas every
single day or the idea muscle atrophy
the good news is after about six months
of doing that you’re like a machine like
people get surprised at how many ideas
you can just have anywhere and so some
of the best target advice I got is from
Paul Graham that’s the guy who talked a
lot about some scalable strategies for
user acquisition at say for example you
helping each user personally sure that
means scale as a group with very large
class size but when the set up is just
starting out it really helps you have an
advantageous small amended
– just go and do it try learn from it
you can I will fail at something that
the learning community they cannot be
and don’t let people who may respect and
believe know what they’re talking about
don’t let your you
because often they will family can be
done and
[Music]
when it comes to changing the world what
I learned from Steve Jobs is if you
believe in a Macintosh if you believe in
iPhone iPod iPad if you believe enough
then you will see it because other
people will believe in it other people
will create software other people will
create products so you need to foster
the belief in what you are dreaming so
that it becomes a reality which is very
different than saying I don’t expect
anybody to believe it until I see it you
need people to believe it before they
can see it don’t necessarily think that
you have to have the homerun in the huge
Apple computer on your first start I
spent a long time in my life with skills
just building little devices for fun for
fun is one of the key things is that
drives you to think and think and think
and make it better and better and better
than you ever would if you’re doing it
for a company build things at first for
yourself that you would want the crazy
busy
you go through initially work day and
weekend it’s really hard work I’ve
always thought that each person invented
himself for whatever reasons through
whatever circumstance through whatever
he has gone through that we are each a
figment of our own imagination
[Music]
you know I often say this would be 12
people at the table but and we’re having
a discussion about something and
something may turn up it could be an
opportunity half the people don’t
recognize this an opportunity a lot of
people are comfortable in what they’re
doing they don’t want change people
actually get into a zone where they’re
very comfortable so they don’t like the
idea of risk so how do you start a
business with no money and the worst
conditions that your backer doesn’t want
to give you a dime
what do you do get ready for a lot of
rejection and at the same exact time do
the things others don’t want to do do
what’s necessary do what it takes no
matter what it is and try not to hurt
anybody along the way develop the habits
you’ve got the brainpower got the energy
but develop the habits of success
from day one I just never tried to hide
that I was the girl in my apartment with
the red backpack like this is Who I am
and I find that people end up rooting
for you and opening more doors if you’re
really honest early on some people start
businesses and try to come across that
they’re much bigger than they are
because they feel like that’s the only
way they’re going to be taken seriously
but if you know your products great and
you know why you need it you don’t have
to apologize for being out of your home
or your apartment or being small I
worked 24 hours a day seven days a week
and I kid that’s what I cared about I
cared about solving problems being
successful anytime an obstacle presented
itself I used it to my advantage
made it work and I never heard the word
know if I heard the word no it meant
maybe then I made maybe yes in the end
luck plays a very important part in how
successful you are but the harder you
work and the longer you work the luckier
you’re going to be
you have the power to just I’m you can
sit down you can code something you can
try it doesn’t matter to you whether
some things it’s a good idea or not
because you have the power to go put
that on line and you know see whether it
resonates and connects with people stay
focused on on the stuff that that you’re
that you’re providing to your users
you’re going to make a ton of mistakes
it doesn’t matter you don’t get judged
by the mistakes people don’t remember
those years they remember the things
that you did they were good basically a
theory is we’re all born thinking like
ah snores you know like when we crawl
and we thought and we fall you know
we’re trying to walk we figure it out
entrepreneurs always figure out you’re
born thinking like an option or that you
know what I’m going to figure this out
regardless and I’m going to keep going
now often the challenge is families and
friends convinced you not to be an
entrepreneur because when you say I’m
going to change the world moving the
most famous person I’m going to save the
seals they say don’t do that you it
didn’t happen before it’s never happy
you’re going to you’re going to you’re
going to fail you can embarrass us
I put the limiters on it they push the
limit they put the blinders on you but
true entrepreneurs will just keep
figuring it out and you know what
everybody wants to hear what they
already believe to be true and so the
last thing they want to hear is an
original idea that contradicts their
belief system so it’s very hard to even
bring that kind of stuff up but those
are the things those are the only things
things that you believe that everybody
around you doesn’t believe when you’re
right that create real value in the
world everything else people already
know there is no value created it’s just
business as usual so it’s so important
to think for yourself
I think my biggest tip is just get
started I meet a lot of young
entrepreneurs who have good ideas or bad
ideas or some ideas and you don’t want
to be a person who just talks and talks
and talks you have to actually go and do
something and don’t worry about if it’s
the perfect thing or not there is this
myth of entrepreneurship that you’ll
have the one genius idea and suddenly
everything falls into place it doesn’t
work like that it’s a hard slog there’s
a lot of things to do wrong a lot of
things you’ll be right the sooner you
get started the sooner you’ll get
somewhere I don’t have same
opportunities you did yeah you do you do
you have ever been to opportunity that I
did and so you can go out there and do
it somebody said well what was your goal
go make money people need to understand
that we cannot take a breath that we
have competitors who want to take the
food off of our table we have an economy
in which is 8 percent unemployment here
9 percent unemployment in the US and
Starbucks Coffee company is not
something you have to have it is a
discretionary purchase and so the
mentality that you need in a business
today Starbucks or otherwise to build
sustainable success in enduring success
is you have to eradicate the human
behavior of relaxing the human behavior
of feeling like we have won and what I
have said in the last two years of
Starbucks is there’s no celebration
there’s no victory left we haven’t done
squat
there’s always going to have to be an
element of luck but I think more
important is putting yourself in a
business that can be ubiquitous that can
that really doesn’t have limits because
otherwise there’s always going to be a
grind to it but if the business if it
can’t be something that you can
visualize every business using or every
consumer using it’s going to be tough to
scale to be big enough or to have the
perceived value to get you to that
billionaire club what fear is stopping
you in your tracks and burning the soles
of your feet
what is conquering that fear whatever it
is that keeps you from being what the
creator intended for you
what if you could unleash everything
great in your life would you do it would
you say yes to that new companies
generally shouldn’t exist existing
companies are usually pretty good at
what they do and so for a new company to
exist it not only has to like you know
come into good you know going to
business in bring a product market but
it has to bring a product to market
that’s so much better than what already
exists that it punches through the sort
of status quo
I grew up under a premise go in an
industry that has a large profit margin
they’ll go in one that’s slim the one
one that’s large take what you’ve got
your assets or your energy your assets
or your willingness to just not be told
no the harder it is the tougher it is
the bigger the challenge to get in the
bigger the opportunity behind the
opportunities behind are endless don’t
allow any one friend family
acquaintances teachers whoever it is
don’t allow anyone to tell you that what
you are dreaming for yourself and your
family is not possible it is possible
don’t be one of those people 20 years
from now are going to be walking around
a nine-to-five job miserable and angry
and bitter to punish failure is yet
another way to encourage mediocrity
because mediocrity is what fearful
people will always settle for you know
one of the things that I tell people
when they ask me for advice about what
they should do when they’re wanting to
start their own business or take a next
step in their career is to actually
start small I think a lot of people try
to they kind of psyched themselves out
or they get too overwhelmed with how big
something can get but the truth is you
really just got to start small and you
got to prove it before you scale it
I like to see people I think it’s really
important even if it’s ten minutes I
hate all this new world of people are
talking so I like the idea of seeing
people I think you get a very different
view and looking somebody’s are you you
know in a second whether it’s right I
mean I think these people they’re like
eight yards away the desk and they’re
busy be some kind talk to them why is
emailing each other because go have a
conversation what happened before email
people spoke hello good morning how are
you
Cubby’s like Google and I getting rich
and user-generated content they’re
getting rich on the content of companies
like Viacom we’re not going to put put
up with that we’re not going to put up
with people taking our product and not
paying but they want a product they can
have it at the right price
since it really didn’t pan out and yet
some things will come through I use the
term gold gold rush rather than mania
because I am a firm believer that what’s
going on at the heart of it it is very
important also there is gold may be very
very deep and may be buried in different
places than people think it is but it it
it’s a great thing this is an area where
our country is way out in front
you take almost every aspect of what
this entails the fiber-optic switches
the software the chips the content
coming from media companies and the
opportunity to set global standards and
have mobile markets every country I go
to the biggest concern I hear is how far
ahead is the u.s. of my country well
since we don’t have deregulation in a
sense we’re not really at the starting
line
in and so I’m certainly a fan of moving
ahead aggressively a company is simply a
group of people and as a leader of
people you have to be a great listener
and you have to be a great motivator you
have to be very good at praising and
looking for the best in people and you
know people are no different from
flowers if you water flowers they
flourish if you praise people they
flourish and and that’s a critical
attribute of a leader now Apple
fortunately is one of the half-a-dozen
best brands in the whole world right up
there with Nike Disney Coke Sony it is
one of the Great’s of the grapes not
just in this country but all around the
globe and but even a great brand needs
investment and caring
I’m going to put the vast majority of my
energy attention and dollars into
building a great product or service and
put a smaller amount into shouting about
it marketing it because I know if I
build a great product or service my
customers will tell each other I mean
you have to mix in some patience with
that the education it’s so much more
widely available there now so many more
people both here in the valley and
around the world who now know how to
start a company and that yeahmaybe
sounds obvious but like it when I
arrived in the valley in 1994 like I
went to the bookstore and I tried to
find a book on how they start a tech
company and like it was a long and
lonely trip through the bookshelves like
there was very little I mean luckily
Andy’s Andy’s book was there but Andy’s
book was about how to run in self which
it wasn’t monopoly
I didn’t couldn’t really get a lot of
benefit out of that my startup at the
time and so like the resources just
simply didn’t exist right and today
you’ve got you know it’s everything
you’ve got a lot of it comes out of
Stanford so like this is the CS 180 just
the CS 183 course of Stanford the
various people have taught Peter Todd
and that moment is taught like and then
the fact that those classes are not just
accessible to people at Stanford they’re
accessible to people all around the
world and there are people all around
the world watching right those are those
videos all the time learning how to
start companies if you’re thinking about
starting a company it therefore really
stresses an idea and again I’ll use my
computer Kiel and the shoulder thing
channel this through something peter
says I think is really relevant which is
a lot of founders think about what it
takes to get the second person in the
company right the second founder of the
second engineer right at the third
person the fourth person he says that’s
no longer the challenge like everybody
wants to start a company and so
everybody can get together two or three
or four people to start a company
he said the challenge is how do you get
engineer number 20 because engineer
number 20 right if they’re in this
ecosystem they could go start their own
company and so how do you convince
somebody to join your company as
engineer number 20 with a tiny
percentage of equity right and and not
being in charge as compared to starting
their own company getting all the equity
and being in charge now one of the
things you do is you tell them they’re
going to have the same problem but then
they respond to you that you also have
that problem and then you sit there and
stare at each other
awkwardly so so that that’s the thing so
so what you have right now is you just
have you have you have just a very very
large number of seed funding companies
that are experiments and their
experiments on their ideas but more
importantly their experiments on who has
the will and the drive and the
horsepower right in the salesmanship and
everything else that goes into
recruiting right and so and every guy
should Sam Altman gave a talk today he
said if you can wave a magic wand you
would combine a lot of these companies
together to get critical mass but
mergers between startups almost never
happened for a variety of reasons and so
so it really it makes this sort of
acuteness this recruiting problem is a
very acute problem by the way you think
about it then as M patients to think
about it as a recruiting problem which
is we have to get really good at
recruiting but it’s not really that as
much as it’s like okay what about my
company is going to be so spectacular
and so special and so unusual and so
distinct and differentiated that it’s
going to be able to easily hire engineer
number 20 away from starting his or her
own company and so to me it basically
translates into basically we just we
have to get better like you just have to
get better you have to be able to
compete you have to be able to win in
this really brutal initial battle the
good news is the company’s coming out of
that sort of churning kind of you know
sort of you know sort of snake bit of
competition the companies that come out
of that are really strong because they
had to be not to come through it but it
it is tougher and it is the other side
of how easy it’s become to start to
start the companies
again this is a it’s again another
version of this market so you always on
you know it’s again even you have a lot
of big markets where you have sort of
inch deep mile wide type type products
and and payments is always sort of a
version of this where where one of the
big challenges is you know how do you
get the first people to use your product
how do you get the people to use your
your new payment system for example and
so it has to be really valuable the
first people who are using it and so you
want to find things that are you know
which is a very intense need you know
PayPal was like well the power sellers
how to use checks if you get the money
instantly so you should cut the time
from seven to ten days to two instantly
that was worth that was worth quite a
bit in many other contexts you already
have payment systems that work as that
work pretty well or very well and if you
have something that’s perfect that’s
only a small Delta – very well and you
know you always you always say that you
shouldn’t let the perfect be the enemy
of the very good I think in business is
often the opposite where in practice but
very good will prevent the perfect from
ever arising so if you have things that
are working very well and you have
something that’s going to be
theoretically perfect that’s often a
really bad idea you know I think it’s
kind of in life a lot of times when
people are down they look at how to
survive while they’re down but stay at
that survival mode long term opposed to
I’m gonna learn how to survive right now
and make it but I’m immediately going to
work towards the next step the next step
and the next step closer I mean so how
did you learn how did you learn how to
be a successful entrepreneur well I
don’t think it’s learning how to be a
successful entrepreneur I think it’s
just being able to do something and know
that you have that ability to do it you
see the human race has the ability all
of you do to do 10 50 times what you’re
doing right now well if you realize you
have that ability as you go along you
find obstacles but you overcome them or
you go right around them like water
might go around them a little bit and
and that’s really it you look at what
assets you have it’s a little bit like
selling whether it’s a tangible product
whereas
servus it’s got to be the very best and
you put forth its features and then how
it benefits the customer well with
yourself personally you put forth the
features you have how these features
might benefit and if you have a product
and I’d love to share this with
everybody don’t ever go into the selling
business what do you have the greatest
service in the world or the greatest
product never go in there to sell your
product go in there to be in the reorder
business that’s kind of your mentality
that’s true yeah because you’re going to
sell it that’s where your focus is if
you want to be in the reorder business
even if it’s a one-time product whatever
you do is so good that they’ll want to
tell somebody else reorder themselves
right so that kind of helps along the
way if you have that mentality do unto
others as you would have others do unto
you that’s the basis for most religions
but they get sometimes carried away in
rites and rituals but that’s the core
value do unto others as you dev others
doing to you and then it’s the feeling
of knowing from how genuine you are and
because people don’t like to just listen
to people talk about themselves how
great they are they want to know
incorporate it to make them successful
also or do something a little different
and I think that’s very very important
make sure you choose you know when
you’re trying to decide whether or not
an idea is good enough to pursue or a
particular business is something you
want to want to go forward with make
sure that it’s the type of business that
when you’re standing in the shower it’s
the thing you want to think about for
the next 10 or 20 years try to do
something that you would want to do
anyway whether it’s it doesn’t
necessarily have to be a very successful
business because when you do decide to
become an entrepreneur and start a
business chances are it’s not going to
it’s not going to become like a
multimillion-dollar business so at we do
something that you love in the beginning
so that even if it fails you’d still
enjoyed it
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