FIND GREAT TIMING

I found, when I looked back at the 150 companies we started over the years, that a much bigger factor in their success was the timing of the idea. Now, by definition, if you want to do something bold and new you are probably going to be early because you want to be ahead of your time. But you don't want to be too far ahead of your time - you want to be a little bit ahead.

What do I mean by that?

You need the world to be ready for what you are delivering. Things have to be in place to make it successful. It could be broadband penetration, it could be GPS adoption, it could be any other technology that you don't control but is necessary for your idea to succeed. The world really has to be ready because you can't push people too hard against their will if the technologies are not in place.

One particular example I would give is in (the year) 2000 after we had a number of companies that were very successful in the eCommerce, we were looking to figure out what would be the next industry that would really move online in a big way and we figured it would be entertainment. And of course, being located right here in Los Angeles, the entertainment capital of the world, we thought what a great thing to do next.

So, we reached out to some celebrities, we got some great people signed up. We actually got Chris Rock and Adam Sandler signed up to build this great comedic entertainment company. The company was called Z.com, we raised capital, we started making great, great content. But broadband penetration was only at about 20%. So this great stuff that we made, you had to do all kinds of browser plugins to be able to watch those movies. It was very, very complex. We (Z.com) actually did not make it (survive) But only a few years later a whole bunch of things changed. Broadband penetration crossed 50%, people had moved from 9,600 baud modems up to faster connections. The flash plug-in came out which allowed people to be able to play movies inside the browser without downloading some other kind of crazy plug-in to make it work. And all of a sudden YouTube took advantage of that and it took off like a rocket ship. The world changed because everybody understood you can now watch video inside your browser. So, we were off by just a few years, but we were off because we didn't understand that the threshold had to be crossed in the marketplace for us to be able to be successful.

So I look back on all of our ideas … I always thought that the idea mattered the most in coming up with a great idea ahead of its time was crucial. I always thought the business plan really mattered. I thought that the business model mattered - how are you going to make money. I thought that the executive team and the work ethic really mattered and of course, all of those things matter. But timing really really makes a very big difference because it can kill an otherwise great idea.

Another example of timing – Uber came out right after the iPhone was where the first applications that really, really took advantage of GPS. All of a sudden many many people had GPS and Uber almost wouldn't even work without GPS. But uber also had unbelievable timing again, that they didn't plan, but that we just got through the Great Recession and many, many people were looking for extra money. so many people signed up to the drivers because a lot of people were out of work. So, two very fortuitous things happened to make that company take off like a rocket ship when it first started.

So again, these are things that are outside of your own company's control but as a start-up you really want to look at the timing and assess it very carefully. Are all the things in place to make your great new idea really be successful, especially the things that you can't control?