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Author: Nirmal Thapa

Bill Gross (Idealab) shares 25 lessons learned from 25 years of creating companies

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Bill Gross started Idealab in 1996. Since then, Idealab has come up with more than 5,000 ideas, started more than 150 companies, and had more than 50 successful IPO’s and acquisitions including created more than 10,000 jobs and thousands of new entrepreneurs.

Bill shares 25 lessons learned from 25 years of starting companies.

Lesson 1:  Challenge the Status Quo

Lesson 2:  Find Great Timing

Lesson 3:  Learn to Say No

Lesson 4:  Be Success Sensitive

Lesson 5:  Find Product-Market Fit

Lesson 6:  Become a Great Story Teller

Lesson 7:  Be Lean

Lesson 8:  Be Remarkable

Lesson 9:  Try Again

Lesson 10:  Build A Complementary Team

Lesson 11:  Be Persistent

Lesson 12:  Protect Your IP

Lesson 13:  Ignore Downturns

Lesson 14:  Use Moore’s Law

Lesson 15:  Iterate Like Crazy

Lesson 16:  Be Frugal

Lesson 17:  Find your Purpose

Lesson 18:  Culture Eats Strategy

Lesson 19:  Have Laser Focus

Lesson 20:  Make Investors Money

Lesson 21:  Be a Learning Machine

Lesson 22:  Always Be Fundraising

Lesson 23:  Be Transparent

Lesson 24:  Ignore Sunk Costs

Lesson 25:  Embrace Diversity

Benchmarks to a better startup ecosystem

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Few benchmarks to a better startup ecosystem:

Is it easier for an aspiring entrepreneur to start a venture now than 10 years ago?

Do the current entrepreneurs face the same challenges as the ones that started 10 years ago?

Who are the entrepreneurial success stories in the current business environment?

What are the main reasons entrepreneurs fail in the current business environment?

How diverse are the upcoming/current entrepreneurs and investors in the market?

Are there better resources (tools, entrepreneurial network/support, access to financing) now than 10 years ago?

 

Generating best ideas in meetings

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Give participants advance notice about the meeting’s agenda.

Have participants bring at least 3 ideas to share at the meeting.

Let the newest member of the team go first.

Have the most experienced member or team lead go last.

Keep the meetings in the mornings.

Do the meeting in a setting that gets lots of natural sunlight.

 

 

 

Contribute to a greater good

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What did you contribute today?

Did you contribute time, energy, thoughts, ideas, money, experience, or skills to something you believe in?

Why not contribute to other’s success as much as your own?

A thoughtful and meaningful contribution to a conversation at home, work, online, or something that resonates with you is a day well spent.

The Human touch

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ChatGPT Capabilities Overview provides a comprehensive description of what ChatGPT can do.
ChatGPT has its benefits and can be a good starting point for many topics, interests, and use cases. When it comes to areas, fields, or domains that require more human interactions, it’s important to use the human skills in the best possible way. Consider client communications which consists of many tasks. If you are planning to write an email to a current client or prospective client, ChatGPT can help create an email draft that you can review and edit as needed. The specific client nuance and context is where the human will need to get involved and provide the human touch. There will be areas where ChatGPT and other tools will provider clear benefits and areas where the human involvement would be a better fit.
Many clients can sincerely feel whether a company representative or the company in general actually cares about them. Adding empathy, curiosity, compassion, trust, credibility, humility, and creativity into your customer interaction adds a lot of value in today’s AI driven world.

Closer to Automaticity

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Is Stephen Curry thinking through each 3 point shot he’s taking in practice and in games?

Does Oprah practice each question beforehand she interviews her guests?

After a certain point in their careers, world-class performers and creators reach a level where their skills and talents look effortless, simple, and automatic. Having put thousands of hours into honing their skills, the performers are not processing their work/craft in a rational and step wise way. It’s Automatic!

Automaticity is the ability to perform a behavior without thinking about each step, which occurs when the unconscious mind takes over. All habits follow a similar trajectory from effortful practice to automatic behavior. (James Clear, Atomic Habits)

 

Travel reflections

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Traveling as a group is fun and enjoyable.

When we visit a destination or take part in a special occasion together, it helps to create memories and shared experiences with other individuals who were also present with us. If you want to create the best experience for everyone going on the trip, it’s good practice to start the trip with intention and end with reflection!

For the best travel experience for your travel group:

  1. Ask each member to write or share their vision of the trip.
  2. Check in with each member on how they are feeling about the trip so far.
  3. Have each member share their top highlights and what can be better next time.

Why did it happen FOR me?

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Instead of Why did it happen TO me, how about reflecting on experiences as Why did it happen FOR me?

Project/task deadlines for your benefit

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Having more time to deliver on a project or think of better ideas or finish a task does not necessarily lead to better results. Many times we can achieve quality output within a short amount of time, creative idea(s) can flow pretty quickly, and you can finish tasks much faster than needed or initially thought it would take to complete.

Setting a deadline to deliver on a project/task can be one of your productivity tools.

If there’s no deadline, you might spend time lingering around than really diving deep into the project/task, lose momentum, lack on motivation or desire or completely forget about it etc.

 

 

Decision on Data

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Data keeps growing. There’s no shortage of data.

Some data is valuable than having no data at all. However, a lot of data doesn’t necessarily mean better decisions and outcomes.

It comes down to making decisions on the data that you have. Decision making skills play a critical role here.

How much data is needed to make a good decision on it?

What insights can we gather from the data we have?

How did we collect the data?

What’s the quality of the data?

These are some helpful questions to make decisions on data.

 

Accelerating Curiosity at Work

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The company culture impacts our behavior at work, with peers, customers, and other stakeholders.

With AI doing many mundane tasks that humans used to do before/until now, we need to evolve or hone the “human centric skills” that computers cannot do so easily/replace us on. One very important characteristic of human beings is our curiosity. While we all start out being very curious as babies, as we get older and get through school, home, and our surroundings, the almost “natural” curiosity seems to fade away or underutilized immensely. It’s no surprise then what happens at workplaces when new hires join at a company.

To reignite and accelerate curiosity at work, we need a paradigm shift. To make curiosity a part of the company culture, it has to be encouraged and incentivized at every level of the company. Management has to be curious and ask thoughtful questions in meetings and encourage active participation and questions from meeting participants. Team leads and managers should approach their team meetings with questions, empathy, and active listening. Eventually, curiosity will flow through the company and become an integral part of its identity. Until then, the road ahead can be challenging but the end result will be magnificent!

Better Habits

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Habits are the small decisions you make and actions you perform every day. 

James Clear, author of Atomic Habits writes on his website that “Your life today is essentially the sum of your habits. How in shape or out of shape you are? A result of your habits. How happy or unhappy you are? A result of your habits. How successful or unsuccessful you are? A result of your habits.”

Generally speaking, who you are today can be traced to what your habits are.

Want to live a healthier lifestyle? Learn and implement good health habits.

Want to become better in client management? Learn and implement good client management habits.

Want to become really good at asking thoughtful questions at work and in school? Learn and implement good inquisitive habits.

Our habits are our secret authentic superpowers. If we want to achieve our goals and visions, we need to have the best habits in place and not only rely on daily motivation, discipline, and will. Habits will take us further than we tend to realize. Establishing better habits early in our development years (health habits, financial habits, social habits, and more) is key to living our authentic greatness!

Thoughts on Skill

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The word “Skill” gets used very casually these days.

It’s a Skills driven world. It’s about Skills. Skills over Degrees.

A skill is the ability to complete a set of tasks well.

In a workplace, people use their various skillsets to get a task done. A designer will use her/his design skills, knowledge, and experience to work on a website, app, or do design work. A training coordinator will use his/her training knowledge, skills, and experience to develop training programs and assessments. The college degree can help land the job but the skills learned and polished overtime will certainly help to accelerate your personal and professional growth.

With technology, devices and tools changing how we live, communicate, and work, professional skills will continue to be important and the differentiator between getting ahead and getting left behind in the workplaces.

Personal growth

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Personal growth is your responsibility.

Schools, colleges, and workplaces can help facilitate our personal, intellectual, social and professional growth. However, the main responsibility for our personal and professional growth is in our hands. With technology disrupting our daily lives and changing how/where/with/way we work, the continuous self learning is the key to remain competitive, relevant, and ahead in today’s world.

Schools, colleges, and workplaces can become a foundation for our growth but not the ultimate places.

Few places to get started or continue on your growth:

https://www.khanacademy.org/college-careers-more

https://www.coursera.org/courses?query=free

https://www.udemy.com/topic/chatgpt/?price=price-free&sort=popularity

 

Trillions of Questions, No Easy Answers | A Google Documentary

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I watched a Google documentary titled Trillions of Questions, No Easy Answers. A very captivating and insightful look into how Google Search works, key people who are behind it, changes it has made overtime, and how it continues to evolve as it tackles spam, misinformation, and more.

Recommended watch if you are interested to learn more about Google search, how Search actually happens, and the processes the team takes to make it continuously better!

Giving feedback

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Giving feedback is both an art and science!

There are different ways to put the content together to give constructive feedback. Constructive feedback will combine both good/positive and negative/improvement areas of the person you are giving feedback to.

Several ways to provide feedback:

  1. Go through all the good/positive parts first and then cover the negative/improvement areas second
  2. Combine good/positive parts as well as negative/improvement areas
  3. Ask the person you’re giving feedback to on which one she/he like to hear first
  4. Use the feedback sandwich method (positive, negative, positive)

The feedback content is as important as the style, tone, and way you are providing feedback. Practice providing feedback with a colleague or a manager, reflect on where you can improve on providing feedback, and then deliver feedback frequently to become a skilled feedback giver.

Building inquisitive young minds

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In Warren Berger’s book, A More Beautiful Question The Power of Inquiry to Spark Breakthrough Ideas, he brings to light how parents can help make their kids better questioners. Warren mentions Hal Gregersen who studied “master questioners” and found that most of them had “at least one adult in their lives who encouraged them to ask provocative questions.” A home environment where questions are welcome, encouraged, and addressed can lead to curious and creative young minds.

Clayton Christensen thinks parents can help their kids be more inquisitive by posting “what if” questions and also encouraging them to solve problems in a hands-on way, via challenging household tasks and chores.

Which muscles are getting exercised?

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Creativity gets better when creative muscles are getting exercised.

Writing gets better when writing muscles are getting exercised.

Presentation gets better when presentation muscles are getting exercised.

Painting gets better when painting muscles are getting exercised.

Dribbling gets better when dribbling muscles are getting exercised.

You get the idea!

 

Excellent Work Quality

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For our work quality to be excellent, we have to focus on more than the work itself.

To get the most out of your focused time at work or craft, we need to get plentiful rest, energy, and “intentional” time away from work. If you feel the most productive in the mornings, you should do your important and high priority work in the morning times. You can take care of the not as important or other priority tasks in the second half of the day. Likewise, if you feel the most productive in the evenings, you should do the important and high priority work in the evening times and do the not as important or other priority tasks in the first half of the day. You organize your day based on how you work best!

In addition, finding and doing recreational activities beyond our work enables us to be more energized and creative when we get back to the work again. Great creative ideas can sometimes come when you’re moved away from work or not thinking about work all the time. Natural sunlight, walks, music, arts, healthy food, meaningful relationships, and many more contribute to producing excellent work quality.

How do you bring about the best version of yourself everyday?

Required course for high schools and colleges

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An important course that’s urgently required and needed in high schools and colleges is Lifelong Skills.

The Lifelong Skills course will cover why certain skills are important no matter what career a student chooses to pursue after their academic years, how to build productive habits for personal and professional growth, and why no matter what educational degree someone holds, gaining skills will be a lifelong journey. Skills will take students and professionals further in their career than talent alone!

Certain skills are valuable lifelong skills: communication, listening, writing, creative, team work, curiosity, authenticity, personal finance management, selling, teaching, coaching, learning, reading, adaptability to name some. If we become aware of these skills and sharpen them early in our professional journey, we will be better suited and authentically successful in the dynamic world that we live in. Technology will continue to become better, faster, cheaper and the more we hone our “human” skills, the better prepared we will be.

Besides the academic subjects we teach in high schools and colleges, it’s high time that we teach students Lifelong Skills and cover the basics to get them ready for the next chapter in their academic and professional careers.

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