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I started Idealab with a dream to make something like a modern version of Thomas Edison’s Lab where we could test ideas under one roof and then spin them off into separate companies. These companies would have their own management teams and their own equity pools, while at the same time benefitting from shared experiences and resources.
With lots of help from so many great people, my dream became a reality. We have come up with more than 5,000 ideas, started more than 150 companies, and had more than 50 successful IPO’s and acquisitions. We are most proud that we created more than 10,000 jobs and thousands of new entrepreneurs.
We learned lots of lessons - some great and some painful - and it’s my honor to share them with you here. If even one tiny bit of one of these lessons can help you be more successful, that would make me so happy. I love entrepreneurship, and hope that our lessons can help more companies and entrepreneurs to be successful and change the world in a positive way.
I am so grateful to all the people who helped me make the Idealab “experiment” work for these 25 years.
Sincerely,
Chairman and Founder,
Idealab
BECOME A GREAT STORYTELLER
Storyteller, is that really important for success in entrepreneurship?
Well, it's much more important than I ever imagined. It's really, really important to perfect your story to both hire the best people, get the best investors, close your customers, motivate your team, you need a story that makes your business feel inevitable. It's a much bigger factor in success than I ever imagined because your story and your brand are what you use to move your company forward.
When I was in college, I had to take a public speaking course and I was terrified, absolutely terrified. Even though I was speaking to my friends about something that I knew very, very well. I happen to be building loudspeakers in college and I was just talking about my loudspeaker designs so I was completely comfortable with the material. I was terrified to stand up in front of the class and explain that, to 20 of my peers. But that one class, Engineering Presentations E10, was so valuable to me to get me over that fear and help me learn how important it was to communicate my thoughts.
Now, I've learned in my career, every single business I start, I’m pitching my heart out. Again, I'm pitching it out all the time again, not just to investors, not just to business partners, but all the time. And I learn from every single one of those presentations.
I recently had to give about 15 presentations on a company and I saw how much better my presentation was the 15th time than the first time. And you should always be looking to get feedback and learn how to make your story sound better find out what didn’t resonate, what didn’t work, how can I make that make more sense.
As you refine that, you will find you can get the best employees, the best team members, the best investors, best customers, just by making your story match your product and feel more inevitable and make the whole story makes sense in a way that really, really changes the trajectory of your company.
Bill Gross discusses his entrepreneurial journey to solve climate change
SALT Voices: Bill Gross | Founder & Chairman, Idealab
Ground-breaking solar technologies and why clean technology is a trillion dollar opportunity
Bill's talk on the single biggest reason why startups succeed
Bill speaks about regulation designed to foster technology-driven growth
An informative and inspiring talk on innovation and starting companies
I started Idealab with a dream to make something like a modern version of Thomas Edison’s Lab where we could test ideas under one roof and then spin them off into separate companies. These companies would have their own management teams and their own equity pools, while at the same time benefitting from shared experiences and resources.
With lots of help from so many great people, my dream became a reality. We have come up with more than 5,000 ideas, started more than 150 companies, and had more than 50 successful IPO’s and acquisitions. We are most proud that we created more than 10,000 jobs and thousands of new entrepreneurs.
We learned lots of lessons - some great and some painful - and it’s my honor to share them with you here. If even one tiny bit of one of these lessons can help you be more successful, that would make me so happy. I love entrepreneurship, and hope that our lessons can help more companies and entrepreneurs to be successful and change the world in a positive way.
I am so grateful to all the people who helped me make the Idealab “experiment” work for these 25 years.
Sincerely,
Chairman and Founder,
Idealab