Tim Draper tells entrepreneurs not to force it. Wait for a genuine idea or opportunity that calls to you, test it with customers first, then take one concrete step like pitching or building a prototype. That first move is the catalyst that gets you going.
Chapters
Hi, Tim. I think students come here from the different personal growth development phase, and there are students who want to found a startup right after Draper, and also there are students who think it's not mature for them. So do you have any advice for students who choose to found a startup later or something like that?
Yeah, I actually think that there will be a natural time for Every entrepreneur, and it shouldn't be forced. Something will happen to you as a worker in the world, and you'll say, this is an opportunity, or they're doing it wrong, or wow, this is exciting. Something like that will happen to you, and you'll say, okay, now's my time. It may be that— It'll be like having a kid. It'll come at the least convenient time. You won't expect it. It'll come at the least convenient time. And you'll just go, oh God, I've got to do it. Until you feel that need to do it, like I have to do it or my life has no meaning, that's when you're ready to go be an entrepreneur. But until then, Go through the whole paces and the program and the whole thing and think about it. What we're doing is we're forcing you to come to a point where you're pitching your business. We're trying to accelerate your thinking on that sort of thing. But if you don't have the right business, you're not doing the world a favor. by just starting one. You really want to make sure you start something that becomes, you know, a real world changer. And normally you might have that idea and it is breaking out of your chest, but you're going to also have to take that idea and test it, test it against customers, focus groups, whatever it takes to— before you You go with certainty in one direction. But as I have always said to all students, that a big part of this getting into the business, once you start seeing that there's something that needs to be done, you have to take that first step. And then you look around and you go, oh wait, no, no, I got to go back, or I'll go over here. But when you take the first step, the whole thing starts to open up and you start saying, okay, I've done that, now what? It's a little like— I always feel like the first step of a marathon run is I'm halfway there because I started running. It's the same kind of thing. You start building your business, you take that first step, you ask You ask somebody about it, you ask a customer about it, you build something. All those things, those are your first step. And once you have that first step, that's— you're halfway there. So that's my thinking. You will find your time. Thank you.
