even if you’ve never started a business
you probably know some of the main
ingredients for success you need an idea
that solves a problem or offers the
benefit you need a solid team behind the
idea you need great execution and of
course you need capital but the fact is
most businesses fail even though they
have all of these key ingredients and
the big question is why there’s
something mysterious about what it takes
for business to succeed and there’s a
notion that a large part of it is random
dependent on external factors that are
outside your control but my experiences
have shown me otherwise success isn’t
just about building a business and then
rolling the dice nor do you have to be
at the complete mercy of good timing or
having the right market conditions my in
fact I think you can actually overcome
these external factors and minimize
their influence now I’ve been starting
businesses since I was a little kid some
of them never took off a number of them
generated a decent middle-class income
and if you made millions but if there’s
a common thread across most of these
businesses it’s that they try to tackle
problems with solutions that have never
been tried before but when you’re the
first to do something there’s also a
pretty good chance would be the first to
fail unfortunately the reality is that
business can be very risky but it
doesn’t have to be by applying a few
powerful and basic principles you can
set a path to success and overcome some
of these boundaries I hope to share some
of these experiences I hope to share
some of these lessons that I’ve learned
as an entrepreneur back when I was a
college student I came up with an
exciting idea something totally new and
revolutionary that I thought would
change the world and as I explained what
I what this idea did there’s a good
chance it may sound familiar to you my
plan was to create the first online
marketplace for sharing rides
it featured route matching technology
online payments and a feedback rating
system
they’re already bulletin boards online
for sharing rides but I created
something that offered more efficiency
and scalability the idea made perfect
sense and I was confident that it would
succeed so I formed a company put
together a business plan developed the
software raised some capital and
launched the company
not long after launching we were
featured in technology blogs like sienna
and life hacker appeared in Time
magazine and attracted the attention of
major companies like Facebook and Zipcar
so how well did we do
did we make thousands of dollars did we
make millions of dollars well it wasn’t
uber and it wasn’t lyft it was called
ride stir and truth be told it failed
but why the software worked well it was
user friendly and a promise to connect
drivers and to save travelers money
unfortunately other factors stood in the
way right store launched pre iPhone and
Android so there was no way to connect
travelers when they were out and about
away from their computers instead we
relied on text messages but this was
more of a hack than a solution because
people still had to go back to their
computers to confirm and complete
payments so one problem we faced one
external factor that was in our way was
lack of technological infrastructure but
another huge problem was that we had to
fundamentally change human behavior so
the when ride store was launched people
weren’t accustomed to arranging
in-person transactions with strangers
through the internet you know feedback
ratings worked on sites like eBay for
buying things from strangers but not for
getting in the car with strangers so the
social economy wasn’t there the
technology wasn’t there and it just
really wasn’t the right time so as we
were continuing to struggle with a lot
of these external factors a guy by the
name of Logan Greene gave me a call he
had just created an app on Facebook
called Zimride for sharing rides and
wanted to see if there was a knob
to collaborate you know his his app at
the time was pretty primitive so I
dismissed the opportunity thinking that
you know I there really wasn’t you know
a need to partner with him and around
the same time one of my side businesses
started to take off and so I actually
moved on from ride store because it had
started to stagnate chalking it up to
just being too early in the market now
Logan green on the other hand over the
next few months he continued to improve
his software branched out from Facebook
to college campuses and by leveraging
existing communities of trust he had
found a way to keep his community afloat
as the sharing economy evolved and
smartphones came to the scene today
Logan green is best known as the
co-founder and CEO of lyft a
multi-billion dollar company could ride
ster had become an uber or lyft
it’s much easier on my self-esteem to
say that I was just too early the
technology wasn’t there people weren’t
ready but being honest with myself
the real reason rights were failed was
that I failed to acknowledge and adapt
to external factors I thought I could
overcome people’s you know objections
about safety and risk rather than
fundamentally changing my business model
one thing was certain it was a hard
lesson learned but I was never again
going to sabotage a business by failing
to respect external realities instead I
was going to listen acknowledge and
adapt my business model now I’d like to
fast forward seven years for startups
and two successful exits and share how
I’ve applied the lessons I learned with
ride ster to my latest startup my good
friend ohad and I recently got together
around an exciting business idea a thin
layer of technology that tucks into your
bed to track your sleep gently wake you
up with a vibrating smart alarm and the
feature we were most excited about is it
turned the entire bed into a remote
control allowing you to tap or swipe
anywhere on your bed to control smart
devices turn a tea
control lights and so forth we were
thrilled with the idea we called it’s
Libra and over the next few months we
developed a prototype then we applied to
a startup accelerator now just a few
days into the accelerator program we
realized we had a problem people were
excited about tracking sleep they liked
the idea of a vibrating smart alarm but
they just didn’t see the point of a
gesture activated bed a lot of people
actually told us they thought it was
kind of lazy so what were we to do you
know we were already a few weeks into
the accelerator program and one thing
I’ve learned from my past lessons was
that I had to find out a solution fast
so we went back to the drawing board and
we looked at the feature that was
actually innovative the gesture
technology and we thought beyond the bed
where people didn’t see the point and
instead we imagined what if we could add
gesture technology everywhere allowing
people to put this where they want back
to the drawing board we came up with a
new concept
naki a small Wi-Fi enabled device that
instantly transforms walls tables doors
countertops and more into powerful and
highly accessible remote controls with
naki discreetly mounted to a surface I
could you could tap anywhere on the
surface in specific patterns to control
lights locks coffee machines all kinds
of connected devices in a simple and
highly accessible way we were thrilled
with the idea but the more important
question was what would other people
think given how little time we had in
the accelerator we had to find out fast
so we went to a hardware store bought a
towel holder with a nice brushed metal
base ripped it off slapped on our logo
took some pretty pictures put them on a
basic website and allowed people to
place pre-orders with their credit cards
letting them know that we wouldn’t
actually charge the cards until the
product was ready to ship in just under
a month we generated over $50,000 giving
us a way to quickly capture consumer
sentiments about the product and
determine with a high level of
confidence that it fit the market this
allowed us to raise capital develop a
production ready prototype
and you know move forward with full
confidence that we had a viable business
just a few months ago we took naki to
Kickstarter setting a goal to raise
$35,000 we hit that goal in one hour and
by the time the campaign was over we had
raised well over a million dollars
becoming the most funded Texas
technology company and kickstart our
history and the sales are still coming
in you know had we stayed with had I
stuck with sleep bruh I would have been
on a collision course with Consumer
Sentiment allowing external factors to
block my path to success instead of
forcing it to work we took a step back
listen to the feedback and adapt it in
doing so we acknowledge the external
realities and changed from within this
allowed us to take over our destiny and
open up a path to success this is a
lesson all of us can apply to our lives
you [Music]