# Session 6, Part 1: Why Do You Want to Be an Entrepreneur?

## Метаданные

- **Канал:** MIT OpenCourseWare
- **YouTube:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-f5S31pjTA

## Содержание

### [0:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-f5S31pjTA) Segment 1 (00:00 - 05:00)

Okay, welcome to the last session of our six session journey. The first part tonight um is Bob Jones and he's going to talk to us about something uh that I raised at the beginning. In the first session, I had a list of questions for you to think about if you're going to start a venture. Most of those were factual things like, you know, do you need a corporation? You know, how do you find a customer? Those sort of things. But there was one slide that was about more personal things. You know, is this right for you? You know, what does it mean for you? Well, Bob is going to sort of explore that in more detail uh in just a moment here. So you he doesn't need introduction. You've seen him before. And uh take it away, Bob. — Would you like a Let me hit your — I'm so wired up tonight that if there's like a gravitational wave that comes by, I'm probably going to burst into flames. So, good evening. Um, I do have a talk for tonight, but before we get too far into it, — there you go. — Thank you. I'd like to turn that around a little bit and actually ask you your thoughts about this course because we've been doing it for a long time and I actually to considerable extent redo every one of my presentations every year. Um, which is probably a sign that I need medication. But, um, I want to keep what's good. I want to dump what isn't. And in the spirit of continuous improvement, you guys had choices for what you could do during IAP and for whatever combination of reasons you took this course. So, I'd love to hear a few comments from you as to what did you expect, what did you get, how did they compare, and did you get any value out of this? Jan, I'm probably going to put you to work because handing out microphones, but how about it? Give us a little bit of feedback, please. You can see why Janet wears sneakers for these things. — I'm a secondy year NBA student and looking into entrepreneurship for the past two years. And I think there's something to be said about distilling all this information into only six lessons. And I've actually found a lot of utility in that. Like, you're really and court truths um that seem very useful just going into the future. One I think point that really just stuck with me in the course because everything else has just been at a very high level is the negotiation piece. I just personally wish that there was a little bit like more content meat on the bones as opposed to going through an exercise just like see like what are the core principles of negotiating and getting some mutually beneficial results. — Awesome. Thank you, Kurt. For what it's worth, the battery in this gizmo has died. So, if you could do a little surgery, I'd be grateful. Thank you. All right, someone else. So, I think um a lot of us came with different experiences into this course. Um what I appreciated is I never got any formal training in business. I've been doing it for 25 years and it was enlightening and motivating to see this um and to now really understand some of these things so that I can go dig into it a little bit more as I'm now embarking on my own entrepreneur uh journey. — So let me dig into that a little bit. But are you saying that there were actually practical lessons that you got out of this or that we covered topics that you had never covered before? Flesh that out a little bit, please. — I saw some of the reasons why I was doing some of the things that I had applied uh and uh um going through for example financial projections and all that I had to learn on the job. Y — I never did it before from really the learning perspective this type of perspective. I have to second with regards to negotiations just because I've been part of a lot of negotiations that it would have been nice to have a

### [5:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-f5S31pjTA&t=300s) Segment 2 (05:00 - 10:00)

little bit more of the theory. — Oh yeah. Thank you. — Um rather than jumping in but it was a good exercise nonetheless. Well, the point you made that people come into this course with vastly different backgrounds of course makes it challenging for the presenters because I've been in these things where some of the participants were freshman, some were faculty members. Uh several had already had two startups and uh a couple who came in and said, "I took the course two years ago. I had a startup. It flopped. I'm back to see what it was I should have paid attention to and didn't. Um, all right. Anyone else want to add something to that? Yes, sir. — I guess I get to go. — Congratulations. — I mean, I'm assuming I've been through fair amount of the similar courses with Y Cominator prior to being I really appreciated how you boiled a lot of first principles between sales side to new customers. I think being in MIT and building all these technologies is very easy to get lost in what you're building in the tech and the product. Um it was refreshing to see how you specifically — boiled it down first principles something customers want customer session customer focus and um regards technology business and business the principles remain the same. Well, I think you just volunteered to teach a session next year because I think that's actually kind of the heart of the matter, which is that we spend a lot of time articulating highlevel principles in our schooling and we sometimes trip when we when those principles collide with reality. And sometimes I find it very helpful to say, well, find out what your customers want and give it to them. It's like, well, duh. But it gets overlooked frequently. So, thank you. That's helpful. Anyone else? And we've got one gentleman here and then we'll close this out. — So, uh, thank you for the sessions. Um, I don't have any entrepreneurial experience. So each of the session was of value for me. Um one thing that I can think of could further help uh especially with the numbers or the pitch is getting access to existing startups pitches or uh [snorts] some numbers that they generated. If we have experience if we have access to that I think it would help us in connecting the parts that okay if I'm trying to um sales how would it look like for stuff like that I think there is a link for some [snorts] that is that I think but other than that if you get simources that would Thank you. There are that is a topic that every now and then Joe and I have knocked around a little bit which we've got a substantial list of people who've gone through this course over the years and we never really have made any effort to try and create a community out of that and yet I think there's real value in that and well I'm going to elaborate on that in my talk entrepreneurs are weird and and they usually don't have very many friends and a community of people who are weird like you can be not only useful but quite comforting. So, uh we're going to flag that. We'll have a follow-on conversation. And you have the mic, sir. So, sorry, you're on. — Very cool. Um yeah, so as someone who the university as an undergrad for two years and decided to drop out because there's too much of an emphasis on the theory and I'm a very like hands-on uh person having to do it from scratch, you know, I've had like, you know, no like formal training on business or anything like that. This is my first like foray into it at all. And I really appreciated how you guys were able to boil it down for someone who's never looked into business at all. And there was never a moment like aside from that day where like there was like a financial trucks and all that um where I was like what were they talking about like everything was very straightforward and I really appreciated that.

### [10:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-f5S31pjTA&t=600s) Segment 3 (10:00 - 15:00)

— Good. All right. That's very helpful. Uh if you think of a major topic that we should have included but didn't and we should build it in for next year. Tell Janet and have her Do you have a final remark you want to make? All right, Janet, we're going to have one more here and then I want to get to the subject matter at hand. Go ahead, ma'am. especially the fashion discussion um — financing sources. Yeah. — I mean, hold on a second. Remember what I said about microphones? — Yes. That was — okay. Find out what your customer wants. Give it to them. Great. All right. Thank you very much. We the feedback is valuable and I don't know how often you've had people running courses ask you what you thought and whether or not it could be made better, but we're pretty serious about that whole sort of customer discovery thing. So tonight's agenda stories and then we're going to talk about some of the hard stuff about entrepreneurship that rarely gets talked about. Some lessons and we'll wrap it up. This is kind of obligatory because these are freestanding and you guys have seen it by now. So I'll just blast through it. Um I started some companies. I wrote a book. I had a turnaround job. I had a couple normal jobs, went to a couple schools. I'm a working musician. Um, I'm playing next Saturday in the morning as a soloist, solo guitarist at the Pine Street Women's Shelter for their Valentine's Day tea. And then that evening, in a complete rehearsal, I'm playing the blues at a brewery in Marbor. And of note, you guys should pay attention to MIT's venture mentoring service if you ever pursue this and anyone in your senior management team has any affiliation with MIT. Okay. How many of you guys have already been through something like Y Combinator or Tech Stars or some sort of incubator for training? Okay. Well, we'll get some comments from you as to how this compares at some point. Some of the popular myths about startups, there's a lot of money available and if I bring my amazing idea to investors, they will just shower me with money. So, might there be some part of that that's not true? Maybe. And there's also some popular myths about boot camps. for example, that there is a magic formula for success. And if you follow the path that we teach you, you can pretty well be guaranteed that you will be showered with money. And there are outfits out there that kind of halfway promise that this left us with a moral dilemma. Do we hype it, promote the myths, or do we tell you facts? We voted for facts because that famous professor had zema articulated an equation for you guys in your very first session. Happiness is reality divided by expectations. Tonight we're going to talk a little bit about expectations because the facts are it's hard and most startups fail and most investors believe that you will probably fail. You may be brilliant. You may be charming and lovable, kind animals. Investors think you're going to fail. There are lots of entrepreneurs. There's lots of competition for talent, funding, and other resources. And many of the entrepreneurs won't get the money. So why am I talking about this? Well, when you decided to come here or Harvard or TUS or Nor Eastern or Northwestern or wherever you went, you probably knew walking in the door that you were going to take a beating somewhere along the way. And so you probably didn't realize

### [15:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-f5S31pjTA&t=900s) Segment 4 (15:00 - 20:00)

how much of a beating you were going to take, but you knew it was going to be hard. But there are a lot of people who promote entrepreneurship and to my in my opinion they over glamorize it and they don't tell you how hard it is. So in the spirit of disclosure tonight I want to talk a little bit about the fact that even the smartest ones fail. And I know a lot of entrepreneurs I don't know a single one who got everything right the first time. It's going to be important that you know to this community question that you brought up, you're not alone and there are some resources you can draw on and I'm going to talk a little bit about all of that this evening. I do think that this is very important. Entrepreneurs solve problems. They improve lives. Your new businesses drive growth, create jobs, and in some cases create wealth. And that's a noble endeavor, but it's hard. When I was interviewing some of my friends who are entrepreneurs for the book I wrote, one of the people who who's in the book failed nine times in a row before she eventually hit it with number 10. So that raises a couple questions. Of course, how on earth do you come back after nine consecutive failures? and also what did you do differently in number 10 that caused this one to succeed which sort of became the paradigm for what I wrote about. So tonight is less my session tonight is less about the practicum that you all said you liked. So I may be making a mistake to deviate from that. But I want to talk a little bit about things you may need in the future. But first, a story that might cause you to think I accidentally walked into the wrong room. Diving boards. Until a couple of years ago, I was a pretty serious springboard diver. Worked out with a coach and a small group of lunatics at Boston University. And I was the guy up on the highboard doing stuff that nobody at my advanced age ought to be doing. And one summer I was screwing around at the outdoor pool in Lexington and my at the time 14year-old daughter came up and said, "Dad, you know that thing you're doing at with a coach at BEu, will they take kids? " I said, "I can probably make that happen. Do you want to learn how to do this stuff? " Yeah, I that flippy stuff. And [clears throat] I said, "It's hard. It's terrifying. You sure you want to do it? Yep. So, I said, "All right. " And I signed her up because it I knew that most 14year-old girls didn't even want to be in the same building with their father. And I wasn't going to pass this up. So, I knew that there comes a point for most new divers. You've learned how to work the board. You've gotten some altitude. You've learned a little bit of basic gymnastics moves. And then you flop. And I knew that she was going to get to that point. And sure enough, the coach realized she actually had some athletic ability. center up on the high board. Said, "Walk to the end of the board. Turn around backwards so the water's behind you. " All right. And I want you to pull your knees up close to your chest, both of them, and balance on the balls of your feet. Water's behind you. And then I want you to fall over backwards. And when I say hut, I want you to come out of the tuck, look back for the water, and go in head first. Now, the second time you do that, you think, "Well, what was the big deal? That wasn't that hard. " The first time you do it, you think, "Oh my god, I'm going to die. " And the last thing I will see is the ceiling of this pool just before I die. And sure enough, she rolled over backwards and when the coach said, "Hut," instead of looking back for the water, she panicked and did a complete backflop from the highboard. And all five of us, the rest of us in the class, knew exactly what that felt like. [sighs] She might have sunk three or four inches in the water. Just tears, bright red back, came to the edge of the pool, and we all sort of comforted her for a minute and then went about our

### [20:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-f5S31pjTA&t=1200s) Segment 5 (20:00 - 25:00)

workouts. because I'd explained to her in advance. I said, "Look, I'm not going to be one of those tiger dads or helicopter parents or whatever. You're going to do this because you want to do it. " And PS, I need the coaching as well. So, for that time that we're on the boards together, we're just fellow divers. Okay? She said, "Deal. " So, I knew she was at a crossroads. She was either going to decide, "This is ridiculous. I've made a terrible mistake. That really hurt. I'm never doing this again. " Or she'd change her mind. So I continued diving and after a couple of minutes, I saw her sitting there looking up at the platform where the two highboards were. And she got up and she walked over to the stairs up to the highboard. I said, "What are you doing? " She said, "I'm going to do it again. I'm going to get it right. " Yes. Her decision, right? And uh actually we continued diving for a couple of years till she got to high school and discovered boys. Well, entrepreneurship is a little bit like that in that you're trying something you've not done before and it's scary and when you flop it hurts particularly if you've led a life of high achievement. It's painful. It's not something you're accustomed to and you come to that crossroads. Now what? And a fair number of people say, "Well, this was a terrible mistake. I'm never doing it again. " And that's the majority. And it for them, it's the right decision. A few of you who have wiring defects say, "You know, that didn't kill me. I'm going to do it again. " So, think about it. If you're an innovator, what comes with innovation? Well, you're doing something new. You may not have done it before. Maybe nobody's done it before. There's no established road map, which raises the alarming possibility that you might not know what you're doing. Totally forgivable, totally understandable. But many people find uncertainty to be stressful. And you have to make decisions, a lot of decisions. And some of those decisions are going to be wrong because you're moving fast. You don't have enough information. And you got to make a decision. Do we raise the price? Do we sign a contract with this supplier? Do I hire this guy? Do I fire this one? So, you have to ask yourself, can you accept that? Many people find that one of the appeals of being an entrepreneur is that you're your own boss. Is that true for any of you thinking about it? Yeah. Okay. Well, here's the good news. Nobody's going to tell you what to do. Here's the bad do, right? You'll be in a situation you think, I don't know what to do. So, let me tell you a couple of stories that my friends that I interviewed for my book told me. These are their words, not mine. Here's Trevor. Trevor said, "Well, I became an entrepreneur. I was 26. I was on the front page of the newspaper. I had a brand new hot car. I had a smoking hot girlfriend. And I had the world by the horns. One year later, I'd lost everything. My car was repossessed, meaning somebody showed up and took it. My girlfriend dumped me, and I was living in my parents' basement, working as an assistant manager at Radio Shack. So, well, Trevor, how'd you feel about that? Took me a couple of years to get the taste of failure out of my mouth and I still remember it vividly every day. I should point out, by the way, that Trevor is quite successful these days. But I decided you I hope you'll see the analogy to the crossroads decision my daughter made. Failure is not a fail fatal experience. It's a learning experience. You have to take care of yourself first and you have to become a perpetual learner. And the most important trait for an entrepreneur to be successful is not intelligence. Please don't burst into tears. And it's not creativity, it's adaptability. Here's Laura. Laura is brassy, kind of profane, polarizing in that there are people who

### [25:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-f5S31pjTA&t=1500s) Segment 6 (25:00 - 30:00)

love her and people who don't want to be in the same room with her. I'm in the first category. I think she's awesome. But she was managing two big businesses for a big company and had a big paycheck. She quit, walked away, went all in, joined an entrepreneurial outfit that Joe and I have done a bit of work with. And she knew when she walked in, she just concluded, "I'm the smartest person in the room. " At 10:30 in the morning on the first day, she retreated to the lady's room in tears. Called her husband. I had asked her some questions that she found distressing. Called her husband, "I've made a terrible mistake. I can't do this. I'm not cut out for this. I have to get my job back. You have to come get me. " Fortunately, her husband had been married to her for 19 years. And she said, "Laura, knock it off. This guy just saved you two years and a couple hundred thousand bucks by showing you that you were going down the wrong road. Go have another idea. " [snorts] Okay. Back in she went. She did have another idea. And it wasn't very good either. She spent a half million bucks of her own money and it was a bust. More tears, more heartache. So she had another idea and in this situation she ended up having a coffee one day with a guy that ran a huge real estate firm. He loved her idea and big success pulled together a little side hustle which blossomed. Signed a big contract with Hallmark, the people who make greeting cards. All of a sudden everybody says, "Laura, you're awesome. " She's always awesome. It just took her a while to get to the answer. And she said, 'You know, Bob, when my second business was tanking, I remembered your story about the kidney failure product. You guys may remember that from our first night together. And I figured out my prospects are never going to use my product. Lesson, validate, validate. Talk to your customers. If they don't want it, you can't sell it. and the lessons from talking to the real estate guy. She just buttonhold him one day. Their kids were on the same swim team and she didn't even realize what a hot ticket he was. She said, "Would you have coffee with me and help me understand something? I've got this little business going and it's taken off and I don't know why. " And he looked at it and he said, "I can tell you why. I want it for all of my agents. " And she said, "Okay. " He said, "No, I want it for all my agents. There are 11,000 of them. Whoa. Who is this guy? Anyway, value of reaching out. And she had something where they won if she won. Okay. Reaction so far? Any takeaways? Anything I should know from you? Some years ago, I figured out when I was interviewing people, if I found somebody I really liked and wanted to hire them, I would spend a fair amount of time explaining to them all the reasons why they should not take the job. It's going to be really hard. It could be really risky. We're probably going to fail. See that curb outside? You're likely to be sitting out on that curb unemployed before long. And if they started grinning, I knew I had the right person. Right? So, if you're grinning, you may be ready for this. Here's a few of my thoughts. This is a lonely life and it's hard to find anybody to talk to. And what I'm about to tell you is a parable, but it's based on a lot of stories from a lot of entrepreneurs that I have distilled. And forgive me, I'm going to use old school 50s type dynamics here. Jack and Jill were both gainfully employed, accomplished professionals. One day, they decided to start a family. They concluded that one of them should stay home and take care of the kids. Jack lost the coin toss and he stayed at work. Jill stayed home. Jack after a while quit his job at Amazon and joined a startup. In fact, started a business, discovered it was way harder than he thought. And he was running into situations, but he didn't know how to handle them. He came home one afternoon and as some men I know do walked in the door completely oblivious to all that was going on at home and wanted to immediately start talking about his day. And he said, "You [sighs] know, I kind of think I don't know what I'm doing. " And Jill at

### [30:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-f5S31pjTA&t=1800s) Segment 7 (30:00 - 35:00)

the moment had just changed two dirty diapers and mopped up strained carrots from the floor. And she said, she exploded. She said, 'What do you mean you don't know what you're doing? Do you realize we've got a mortgage, we've got two kids, we need to be saving money, and you took this crazy job and you're telling me you don't know what you're doing? Have you lost your mind? Which caused two thoughts for Jack. One was, "Oh dear, she's right. " And the other was, "That didn't work very well. I don't think I'm going to do that anymore. " Right? I think if I have self-doubt, I'll just leave it at work. But the fact is, if you're going to go do this, you're going to be rejected constantly. Potential clients will tell you no. Partners People that you want money from, they'll tell you no. Potential employees, they'll say, "No, I'm going to take a job somewhere else. " And it's hard to find a shoulder to cry on. And if you have lived a life where you have been accomplished and you've been rewarded for being smart and for your awesome work ethic, this will be difficult. And it is unfortunately true that not everyone has your best interest at heart. My friend Glenn built a good business over six years. He worked very hard. One summer his wife's father said, "You know, I come into some money and I'm going to take the whole family to Europe and I'm paying all the expenses. Two weeks vacation. " He said, "I can't go. I have to stay home and work. " He raised capital. He secured customers. His business was growing nicely. And then his investors stole the company from him. He found that to be difficult. So, sidebar, two lessons. Don't raise money from the wrong people. And protect your intellectual property. In other words, if you've got a magic algorithm or secret business formula, protect it. So, the risk of pushing a few more of you off the cliff. Meet your constant companions. Anxiety, self-doubt, imposture syndrome. Let's unpack that a little bit. If you're running a company, there are a lot of people that are counting on you, your family, your employees, maybe even your customers. And when you flop, you go home wondering, "Maybe I've made a mistake. " How many of you found yourself maybe a month into your freshman year, looking at your genius classmates and your terrible test scores, and found yourself thinking, "Maybe I made a mistake. Maybe the admissions office made a mistake. " Right? Well, same feeling. Grownup, of course, but you doubt you're the right person for the job. You have been presenting yourself as the capable captain of the ship, but secretly you worry maybe you're not. Maybe you're a fraud. Maybe you're a poser. These are disturbing thoughts. So, is there hope for us? Well, except upfront that normal people can't help you because you're not normal, right? I mean, serial entrepreneurs are just wired differently. If you were normal, you'd work for Amazon. Your normal friends don't understand why you're not working for Amazon. You have made life choices that they think are crazy. And if you come to them wanting to boohoo a little bit because things aren't going well, they think, "Well, of course they're not going well. You're a dumbass for even doing this. You should be doing this other thing. We have a nice stable income. " So, they can't counsel you. So, the answer, find a community of people who are as crazy as you are, which you sort of brought up and which we probably need to do more with. But Joe and I, as mentioned, spent a decade or more working with a group that works with high growth entrepreneurs in the Midwest. And over again, they would meet in Kansas City or Witchah or whatever and come into the room and say, "I thought I was the only crazy person

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out there. I'm in a room full of people like me. These are my peeps. " And in short order, like half hour, they'd all be sitting at the bar swapping all kinds of details about their life stories because they were kindred spirits. So find a group like that. We may be able to help. Seek their counsel. Help them as well because there will be times when that support network is a lifeline. Shifting gears for a second. I think this is really important. There's this word pivot that gets batted around as a synonym for I didn't know what I was doing so I changed. And that's actually okay because scientists articulate a hypothesis and test it. And if the hypothesis proves to be wrong, they say, "Well, time for the next hypothesis. " If your business fails, in a lot of places in the US, the feeling in the community is if your business failed, then you're a failure. Fortunately, in places like Boston and a few places in the West Coast, you'll talk to people and you'll after a while say, "Yeah, my business flopped. " and they say, "Ah, dude, mine failed three times. " Welcome. You know, keep going. Because you are testing hypotheses. This is a re-engineering of your mindset here, right? You are testing hypotheses and what you did was found one that didn't work. Time for a new hypothesis. To use a different analogy, you may be a talented jockey. You may have just picked the wrong horse. Shoot it. Find a new horse. One thing you can do, and I have found this to be a lifesaver, is get a business advisory board. These are experts who want you to succeed. They're helping you for mainly well, partly because they like you, you hope, and mostly because they want to see you succeed. This is not the same as a board of directors. A board of directors, as you no doubt have learned in the course of the past week and a half, they represent the shareholders and they are not only empowered to fire you, but obligated to fire you if they think you're not the right person. That's not usually a good place to stand up and say, "I haven't the slightest idea of what I'm doing. " [clears throat] business advisory board does not have those fiduciary responsibilities. It's a great place to stand up and say I have no clue what to do next. Just a quick story at one point I along with one of my genius scientist friends had invented a 2 and a half ounce drink that helps you sleep at night based on food ingredients. And I said, 'I don't have the slightest idea how to find a manufacturer who can bottle a beverage like this in quantities less than 2 million bottles, which I can't afford. My friend Null had recently retired as senior VP of a lot of stuff, including manufacturing at PepsiCo. He said, "Let me make a couple phone calls, Bob. " Two days later, problem solved. So it really helps if you've just assembled some people who think you might have a big idea and I know something about this. I might be able in this narrow arena help you. Interestingly about a year into it I realized these people have helped me over and over again and I've never done a thing for them. I feel guilty. I can't give them any money. I don't have any money. I should give them equity, some ownership in the company. And I didn't know how much to give them. So, I asked him, I said, "I'm thinking of giving you guys some equity. I feel obligated to do that, and I'm grateful for your help, and my business would have died six months ago without your help, and I don't know how much to give you. You're my advisor's advise me. " I trusted him, obviously. I said, "I was thinking of giving you a one point a piece, 1%. " and they said, "That's too much. Give us a half a point a piece. That's more appropriate. " And when you show your capitalization table to prospective investors, they will acknowledge that you made a sophisticated decision and it'll help you raise capital. Thought I

### [40:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-f5S31pjTA&t=2400s) Segment 9 (40:00 - 45:00)

love these guys. Attitudes that will help. What I found to be the right blend is if they listen more than they talk. If they're attitude is, I want to show you that I'm the smartest guy in the room and I know everything. That's not going to be productive. Most of them you want to be cheerleaders so that you can stand in front of them and say, "I fell down. " And they say, "Don't worry, you'll get up. " But it really helps if you have one or two who will give you 10 reasons why your idea or the steps you're going to take won't work. I had one of those guys who's pretty sophisticated, worked at Nestle, had seen all manner of ideas, most of which didn't work. And he had a long list of sensible, validated reasons why things wouldn't work. And he'd throw out 10 of these things. And I think I got you there, here, here. I had seven of them covered. Three of them I would think, "Oh god, I didn't think of that. " So I find that to be a useful balance. [snorts] You guys okay with this question? Yes, sir. Help. Not to dive too much into the details of the advisory board, but how would you recommend we structure or add some sort of framework or structure behind their roles, responsibilities, does that document the sense, hey, it's once a month to sit down, talk about business challenges, grow solutions, all those sorts of things. — Thank you for the question. Um, [sighs] I don't have what is considered best practices. I don't know what I did with every time I did one of these because I knew these people and I trusted them. I would simply have a call with them and we'd chat and I would say, "Look, I don't want to burden you with a lot of stuff. What I want is to be able to call you every now and then and something that is your area of expertise and not mine. And we'll probably have a meeting for two hours every other month. And my goal is we take what you know and what the other adviserss know and add it to the little bit that I know and we'll build a great company. and they all said, "I've been loving what you're doing. This idea is cool. I'm in. " It was that straightforward. And the only time we put together a document was when I finally figured out I ought to give them some equity. And we had to put together something that said, "Here are the options and the vesting processes and you should file an 83b election and blah blah. " But prior to that, it was all a handshake. Anybody else questions? Oh, got one behind you, Jim. Yes, sir. — From a personal commitment standpoint, would you say that the threshold for a chance of succeeding from a startup going from zero to one? Is that you have to view the idea as something you have to attempt? Are you asking me if the success criterion is I get so fired up I think I just have to do this? — Yeah. Is that like the threshold of commitment to have chance? — [sighs] — I think it that is a double-edged sword in that it's the right level of passion will cause you to think I might work on Saturday and every now and then and get something done and I'm going to get back up after I've been knocked down. Too much passion blinds you to the obvious. And I think if you meter into that, yeah, but I also got to make a living and I got to deal with my family and support them and on a good day. I actually like my children. I wouldn't mind spending some time with them and having some balance. So I think Tuesday night when we talked about pitching, I said deploy passion wisely because if you're pitch is so passionate that they fear you're just going to have a seizure or something, then you're unlikely to attract investment. And I think similarly, when you're looking to start something, if it really gets you fired up and you think, "God, I would love to do this," that's a really good sign. If you think, well, I'm just not

### [45:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-f5S31pjTA&t=2700s) Segment 10 (45:00 - 50:00)

going to eat or sleep or shower or see anybody. That's not a good sign. Reasonable answer. — Yes. — You're welcome. Okay. Oh, backed up. I'm sorry. There is something that I left off here. There are resources around. Harvard's got the ILAB. MIT's got venture mentoring service. Most of the schools have discovered that there is an appetite for entrepreneurship amongst their constituency and they have responded. So find those resources and avail yourself of them. This is sort of an elaboration on the question that you just asked me, but an awful lot of entrepreneurs also think that they really can't do anything else 247 but work on their business. And I think that's a really bad idea because you have to make good decisions. And it doesn't matter how smart you are, how strong your work ethic is. There are 168 hours in the week, no matter who you are. And if you spend every one of them working on your business, there will come a point when you will self-destruct. So, not to sound like your grandmother, but there are some obvious steps which are frequently ignored. Enough with the carry out pizzas. Eat a decent meal now and then. Get some exercise. It's incredible for helping you manage stress. There's a lot of literature out there that says a five minute walk has extraordinary benefits in reducing your stress levels. And because I was in the sleep business for a while, I ran across a bunch of statistics to the effect that sleeping only five hours a night causes the same impairment to your cognitive abilities as three drinks. So, you're operating probably beyond the legal level for intoxication most of the time. Ask yourself, are you making the best decisions for you and your company? Get some sleep. Go home. Take care of your loved ones because they're going to be important to you long after your business has failed or succeeded. There was one year when I missed Halloween with my kids who wanted to walk around in costumes and have me take them with them. And they remembered that I missed their Halloween long after I remembered why I missed their Halloween. And when that happened, I said, "Okay, new rules. I'm not doing that anymore. " Right? The business issues will be there in the morning. You need to recharge your batteries. This is hard. It drains you. Do stuff you love. Some of you run. Some of you climb rocks. Some of you are artistically gifted. Some of us blunder our way into playing music. Whatever it is, do stuff that recharges your battery. Your business will be better off and so will you. I had a party when I launched my book. Picked up a lovely place on the seapport. I had a whole bunch of lunatic entrepreneur friends from Kansas and Nebraska and Oklahoma who flew in on their own dime to come and a bunch of people here in Boston to come. And it was kind of exciting. Writing a book was extraordinarily harder than I expected it to be. And after a lot of false starts, I had ended up with something I was kind of proud of. And I thought it was kind of cool to have a launch party. And I didn't want it just to be cocktails or I wanted to have a little bit of a panel discussion talking a little bit about entrepreneurship. And so I snagged three of the entrepreneurs and I had them sit at little stools up front. Each of them had a microphone and I asked them a question. I said, "You're in a room full of people who either are entrepreneurs or are thinking of being entrepreneurs. What's the most important piece of advice you could give them? " Just like that with no coordination whatsoever. All three of them said, "Don't do it. " Whoa. This sort of underscores the lawyers maxim. Don't ask a question you don't know the answer to. Whoops.

### [50:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-f5S31pjTA&t=3000s) Segment 11 (50:00 - 55:00)

But it did raise two questions. Why on earth would you say that? And given that all three of you have are running startups now, some of you for the second or third time, why do are you ignoring your own advice? So a provocative discussion followed. And to that extent, a question you may be asking yourself right now is why on earth would anybody do this? If it's as difficult and maybe even dreary as I'm describing it, why would you do it? Well, some of their answers, you have to. This piggybacks on your question, right? You feel a real drive to create something that's better. You want to be your own boss, even to the point where you'll take a pay cut to do it. Maybe you're just too weird to do anything else, right? You found that corporate culture was a lot like that pair of shoes that looked great on the shelf, but when you walked around in them for a while, you found yourself thinking, I can't wait to get out of these things. They just don't fit me. Maybe you want to improve the life quality of life for others. I had a an entrepreneur had a pretty successful business going St. Louis healthc care software pretty cool. And he called me up one day and said, "Bob, you told me to find my customers. I found more than I expected. I don't know how to select where I ought to go. Can I spend a day with you? " sanded a whiteboard and smoked my way through this and helped me make some choices. I said, "Yeah, come on into town the night before. I'll take you to a sleazy seafood restaurant and we might have an adult beverage or two and then we'll work all day the next day. " And we did and he did. And [sighs] I was operating under the assumption that what he wanted to do was grow this company to the point where somebody came along and bought it, enjoy his wealth for a year or two, go do another one. And he would say, "Yes, yes, that's right. " But when we talked about that, he was engaged but not animated. And you know, when you're having dinner with somebody and maybe enjoying a beverage or two, conversations tend to drift a little bit. And he started talking about this orphanage in Venezuela that he was sending money to and sending resources to and was supporting. And when he described that, he would light up like the Christmas tree in Time Square. And about midway through the next morning, as we were working through all of these sort of triage exercises, I said, 'You know, I don't think you're looking at this the way you should be looking at it. I don't think you want to go hellbent on growing a company that investors will love and someone will come along and acquire it. I think what you want to do is legitimately build a great company. And if somebody comes along someday and says, "I'd like to buy it. " You'll have the conversation. But what you want to do is build a great company that allows you to spend some time on these philanthropic efforts that you really like. And he stood there for 30 or 40 seconds and then he went, [sighs] "I feel so much better. " He says, "You're absolutely right. I've been going down the wrong road all this time. So maybe you want to improve the quality of life for other people. One more story like this. Another of the entrepreneurs was involved in the business of bringing internet access to sections of rural Nebraska. Thought, well, that doesn't sound very glamorous. Why are you doing it? and he said, 'I'll give you an example of why I'm doing it. There's a woman out there, call her Carol. Carol doesn't have internet access. All her kids get their homework assigned online. And what she has been doing for the last couple of years is leaving work at 2:00, picks her kids up from school, and parks the car outside the library so the kids can piggy back on the Wi-Fi from the library. they can get their homework assignments, they can do their homework, and then she takes them home, points them toward the prepared meal that she's left for them, and goes back to work. And when the day came that we put

### [55:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-f5S31pjTA&t=3300s) Segment 12 (55:00 - 60:00)

internet access in her place, he said, you know, yeah, I'm the CEO of the company, but I was doing the install along with the rest of my guys. I'm just wearing a shirt that says Mike. And she came up to me and she says, you're running this outfit, aren't you? And he said, "Well, yes, ma'am, but that doesn't really matter. " She says, "Let me show you something. " She says, "Come in here. " She says, "You see that bag of groceries on the table in the kitchen? Tonight will be the first night in four years that I have been able to cook dinner and have dinner with my children, and tomorrow I will be able to work normal hours and come home because my kids finally have internet access. " He said, "That's why I'm doing it. " Great story or what? Right. So, you want to correct something that needs to be fixed, which was one of the things you mentioned in our very first session. There's a few more answers. All of them legitimate. Maybe you like the idea of creating wealth for your family and for yourself. Build it, sell it, build some wealth, spend a year in the Alps or sailing your yacht, and then do it again. Maybe you love the buzz. You get really worked up over cool technologies that can solve problems that you're interested in. And forgive me if I'm thinking like a musician, but to be a decent musician, you need to have an odd blend of creativity and discipline. If I remember right, you know a bit about this, right? You've got family members and you're a player and etc. You need to know your scales. the modes. You need to understand the framework. You need to know the difference between 34 time and 44 time and but then you have to have something creative going on. And being a good entrepreneur is a bit like that. You need lots of creativity, but discipline. So your reaction so far, your thoughts, any of this sinking in? You have questions or comments you'd care to offer? Janet, there's one thing you said that struck me as wrapping up the whole six sessions or five and a half sessions — and it was the take care of yourself. I've been riding motorcycles since before close most to the other people in this room were born and after riding for 25 years I took a motorcycle safety course I was teaching at the grad school of Bentley in uh teaching insurance financial planning and risk man who got up at the front of this motorcycle training course. I could have plucked him out of there and stuck in front of my class because he said, "The first thing you have to understand is what can kill you when you're riding a motorcycle. " And he used the exact same example that you did uh about sleep and mentioned a few other things. So, at the core of anything we do is who's doing it, why are we doing it? The stories you've been telling the last 20 minutes and a half hour are just exceptional. Um, in my past businesses, as I said, I talk about people's money and they tell me and I ask them what they want to do with it. Well, I want to earn XYZ money. I need to do this. Said, for what? What are you going to do with it? I don't care that you want to earn money. What do you want to do with your money? And until they can articulate that, it makes no sense to plan for it. Woo. All right, we may have to have a longer conversation. I'm currently on my 12th motorcycle and and took that motorcycle safety foundation course for advanced riders out on the tarmac at uh Hanscom Field. I've got bit over 100,000 miles of motorcycleycling under me, probably 30,000 of them in the rain. um gotten sideways on black ice in Chicago, etc., etc. So, it is important to identify that it's just not smart to do that if you are in an impaired state. Well, sleepy or maybe you know these guys that get off work, put their helmet on, go three blocks to the bar, drink five beers, and then get on their motorcycle. They're called organ donors, right? So, entrepreneurship is usually not quite that dramatic, but frizzed out entrepreneurs make bad decisions and you might not die, but your business probably will.

### [1:00:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-f5S31pjTA&t=3600s) Segment 13 (60:00 - 65:00)

Thank you. Okay, I'm going to give you the results of a year of research in probably two bullet points. Okay, you've heard this statistic a few times and they vary according to definitions of what is success in the food industry. They ask the question, is your product still on the shelf two years later? And other industries use different metrics, but you almost can't get away from the fact that eight or nine out of 10 startups fail. And I'm going to horribly oversimplify a lot of complex stuff, but I think it kind of boils down to you're missing skills you didn't know you needed. If you've never launched a marketing campaign, you've never done packaging design, you've never had to fire anybody, you've never raised capital, you have never had to motivate a group of people after you just lost your shorts in the marketplace, etc. There's a whole set of skills you may not realize you need, and you don't have them. And also as per tonight you have to think like a scientist and say well that hypothesis didn't quite work. So the previous sessions the nuts and bolts have been talking about the skills that you may not know you needed. Tonight we're talking a little bit about thinking like a scientist. But I found that when I examined and you know this wasn't a rigorous analysis but I spent a lot of time talking to entrepreneurs that I've worked with some of whom have had conspicuous successes epic failures. This is the two bullet summary. I'm going to make some closing remarks. And we may actually end a couple minutes early, but I'm going to open it up to you guys now. Are there questions that I should have asked you or things talked to you about? This is the only session in nuts and bolts where we actually dive into these sort of human questions and then the wrap-up session will be a success story that Marina has. Send you out with a buzz. It's a great story. You will enjoy it. You will find it enlightening. You're welcome. But first, do you have any final questions, comments, thoughts that you'd like to pursue? Yes, sir. Go ahead. So assuming that you need three, four, nine attempts to make something of value. How do you what are some best practices to give yourself that kind of runway? [sighs] — Well, there's a couple of answers for that. Many people who become entrepreneurs fear that they are unemployable afterwards. and that if you go down this road, you'll never get a normal job. I have found that to be not true. What I have found in fact is that there are companies out there who want what they call change agents. That means you're not afraid of a blank sheet of paper and that you might be able to contribute some creative out ofthe-box thinking that they are lacking. And so one answer when I have employed a few times is to weave in and out. Go get a normal job is translation of all that. And after about two years I end up thinking, God, I'm bored. And to the dismay of my family, I think I just got to go start another company. And another is well, of course, the happy answer is your business succeeded. you've got some runway because you just put some money in the bank and you have some credibility. But again, if you go to the right places, I actually know a couple of investors who straightforwardly say, "Bob, I just don't want to screw around with anybody who hasn't already had a failure. " And there's two reasons. One is they don't know they can fail. Oops. And the other is they've not shown me that they have the resilience that's required to succeed. So in an odd sort of way, if you go to the right people and say, "I made an effort here. I did a lot of good things. The end result was not successful. Boy, did I learn a lot. I want to bring what I learned on somebody else's nickel

### [1:05:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-f5S31pjTA&t=3900s) Segment 14 (65:00 - 70:00)

to you. " It's not a bad pitch. So the two ways are if you could pick yourself up and go right back to it, you won't be unappealing to everybody. people will not regard you as having the plague if you go to the right places. And the other is well sometimes you just think all right I should weave back into the corporate world and see what's going on there. Maybe I can add something. Maybe I can learn make my family calm down a little bit because I have a steady paycheck which is a novelty. Um so good question. Thank you. And would you pass the mic? Thank What are your thoughts on waiting to start a business? Trying to do a day job, get it to a point where it looks like it might be feasible, then flip the switch, go full time, or [clears throat] dive all the way in and actually spend 100% of your effort to do that. I think that's a tough call. Probably depends. But just based off your experience, what have you seen? — That's a really good question. Um, in the first session that we had, I walked you guys through sort of a back of an envelope analysis. How much money do I need to make? How much is a customer worth? How many customers do I need? Can I do that? And I would argue against going allin until you have done at least some of that kind of analysis. I think people get swept away by their passions. Um this is such exciting technology and it's moving so rapidly. I have got to get in on this and grab my spot at the front of the line. But you know, pioneers have arrows in their backs. And so I would say if you have assessed the market a little bit and you think realistically that you could make enough money to have a sustainable business, then back up. If you've not done those things, it is not the right time. If you have done those things, it might be the right time. A lot of people are arguing these days, and I think there's wisdom here, and just doing it in small steps is almost like a side hustle. That's easier with a service business than with the product business. But go out there and make some mistakes while you still have your steady paycheck. Validate, validate. And then when you're ready, you can go forward to others and say, "I've already done all this validation. Now I'm going full-time and I'm seeking investment. Here's what I've learned. Here's what I want to use the money for. It's much more solid pitch. Deploy passion wisely, I guess. Thank you for the question. It's a good question. Yes, sir. — Thank you for an interesting series of talks. With the exception of your book, what other books do you think are essential as entrepreneurs? [sighs] I have sort of a rule of thumb when I'm looking at business books, which is that I like the one that's the shortest because having been in the publishing business a little bit, I know that most 200page books would make a great 50page book, but the publisher says says, "Bob, I can't sell a 50page book for $30. Say the same thing four times over and then I can sell it. " I'm again I'm oversimplifying, but there's a lot of If you read a lot of business books, right? So, with that as preamble, I like the lean startup, which I think is useful. And though it's not specifically about entrepreneurship, there's an absolutely awesome book simply titled Leaders. Um, and I'm sorry I cannot remember the names of the authors, but there's two of them. Warren Bean, B I Ehn, maybe. I'm not sure. and I pull it out every couple of years because they talk about what leadership is really all about and it's very short. So, I think it's an awesome book. It's brief and boy, it really hits home on some

### [1:10:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-f5S31pjTA&t=4200s) Segment 15 (70:00 - 72:00)

important points. When I wrote my book a couple years ago, people were starting to be asked to go back to the office. They were rebelling. There were phrases popping up everywhere like quiet quitting the great resignation etc. And the thrust of my book at the time was how do you start a company at least as a starter kit. So I touch on questions like how do you interview to figure out are you're looking at the right person and if you've made a hiring mistake and if you hire enough people you will make mistakes. How do you determine that it's time to fire them? and how do you actually do that without you know laying waste to the morale of everybody else in your company. So there's a lot of sort of practical stuff and almost as a lark I started interviewing other entrepreneurs who almost immediately started telling me about the failures they'd had and what they learned from it and how they felt about it and how they're now succeeding. I thought, "Oh my goodness, this is valuable substance. I got to rewrite the whole book. " Which I did. Um, and so it's got a somewhat different thrust from some of the others, but I like the lean startup. I love this book, Leaders. It's more useful as a management guide than as an entrepreneurship guide, but valuable nevertheless. So, anyone else before I pull the plug on tonight's uh talk? Okay, thank you for your questions. Oh, yeah. And by the way, if you haven't chosen to stay in touch, scan that QR code. Okay, wrapping it up, three things I want you to remember. Entrepreneurship has many rewards for certain people, but it's not for everyone. If it's not for you, many ways you should be glad. It means you have a chance of having a normal life. Support, adaptability, and resilience are critical to getting through the hard times. Tonight's talk was in case you do run into hard times. And realistically, I hope you never need this stuff. But if you do, maybe one day you'll look back and say, "Oh yeah, Bob said this would happen. " Go get some support. You'll grow your adaptability. You'll grow your resilience. and one day you'll have your success. So, thank you very much.

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*Источник: https://ekstraktznaniy.ru/video/20890*