From 600+ conversations with the world’s leading thinkers.
Either as a startup founder or a venture capital investor, you should not care about what others believe to be exciting or overhyped. Do your own primary research and make up your own mind.
Starting a business is an exciting venture, often filled with enthusiasm, borrowed money, and a fair share of ignorance. In fact, a certain level of ignorance can be beneficial for an entrepreneur. If you were fully aware of the potential obstacles ahead, you might hesitate to start.
Money is not my first priority – I have always pursued what I am passionate about whether that will make me money or not, my fascination is learning and discovery more than being rich and powerful.
Different things energise different people. I get energised from building things that people like. I've met people who are totally motivated by being in the press, or motivated by money, and so many things… but for me, it's about making sure people enjoy the things we're building.
My fun statement is that if I see the same thing, three times in one week, from disparate news or information sources, I have to move quickly as it's a trend that's likely to happen.
People have always been entrepreneurs, what's changed is connectivity. We can now relate to people all over the world and get to market really quickly. You could generate traffic in 24 hours, and sell within a week. It's incredible.
I invested most of our money, not in marketing, but in service. That was crucial to our early growth.
Success is really a portal into the next stage that we're possibly capable of doing, and we have to decide how we're going to face that tsunami of emotions that then comes flying at us when we thought all we were going to have was happiness.
The venture capital industry exists to get capital in the hands of deserving entrepreneurs, but the data tells us that venture capitalists often have only a narrow definition of what 'deserving' means—and it often corresponds to being white and male.
I don't believe there's a universal formula for success—I can only share what worked for me, which was driven by enthusiasm for new ideas. What I value most in people is enthusiasm—not passion, which I find overused—but genuine enthusiasm to see opportunities and act upon them.
Most people think of entrepreneurs as someone who starts a company, but to me? Entrepreneurship is really about problem solving. You can be an entrepreneur in a company, in a family or in your own venture. The bottom line? If you can solve a problem – you're an entrepreneur.
Every time we achieve some version of success, whether you've sold that first company or maybe you've just sold your first tube of lipstick or your first consulting contract, every time we achieve some version of success we see another version of ourselves that we didn't even know was possible. We as humans wonder what else potential we have to explore.