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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
Find product market fit
Product market fit is something which is very elusive but extremely valuable and you almost never get it right out of the gate. But you win or lose on customer delight and that's what you achieve when you have product market fit. Sometimes it only takes a very small twist to take something from sort of snoozer to delight but your job is to find it. Finding that is so, so valuable.
The thing you're looking for in product market fit is pulled from the customer rather than push. You don't have to beg them to take your product, they want more of it. One way to assess product market fit is what is the feeling of your customer if you told them you were taking your product away. If you can get more than 50% of your customers to be angry or unhappy if your product was no longer in their hands, then I think you're really onto something in the product market fit arena. The important thing about product market fit is you have to be very close to the customer to understand when you have it.
I never thought I'd be giving business advice with a boxing quote from Mike Tyson but he had an incredible quote, which was relevant to boxing but actually relevant here too. Which is, everybody has a plan until you get punched in the face.
And I feel in business you get punched in the face, metaphorically, by your customer when they don't feel product market fit. When they just feel blase about what you're offering. When they don't feel angry if it was no longer existing.
So your job is to constantly figure out what would it take to cause such delight in my customer, that they would feel so mad if they no longer have your product. That means they're going to recommend it to other people. That means they're going to pull more of it from you. That means it's going to prove all of your aspects of doing business with your customer. And sometimes it's more valuable to even narrow your customer set, narrow your feature set, to get product market fit with a smaller group of people but to have that strong feeling that's how valuable product market fit is.
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
