that I want to take you to the moon?
– [Male Interviewer] 10 years.
– 10 years.
Entrepreneurs never feel their ideas may or may not work
and you know what entrepreneurs do?
They pivot!
In a business it’s like a war.
You have to be completely prepared.
It’s not about the great vision
it’s always about the great execution.
– He’s a business executive entrepreneur
and founder and former CEO of InfoSpace.
He’s the cofounder of Moon Express,
a company that is making machine-operated spacecraft
to try to go to the moon and harvest it
for its raw materials.
He’s on track to potentially become
the world’s first trillionaire.
He’s Naveen Jain and here’s my take
on his top 10 rules for success.
Rule number one is my personal favorite,
and make sure to stick around all the way to the end
for some special bonus clips.
Also, as Naveen is talking if he says something
that really, really resonates with you
please leave it in the comments below
and put quotes around it
so other people can be inspired as well, enjoy.
(inspirational orchestral music)
(futuristic music)
– [Narrator] At a compound in Mountain View California
internet billionaire Naveen Jain is hatching a plan
that could make him the world’s first trillionaire.
– [Bob] Naveen, good to see you my friend.
– [Naveen] Good.
– So Naveen, the team is working hard
as it usually is.
– [Naveen] Of course.
– [Bob] So we’re going to land on the moon
somewhere around here
close to where the Apollo spacecraft landed at the equator.
– [Naveen] How did you pick that area?
– Well it’s, first of all it’s on the near side
so it’s easily accessible from Earth.
The dark area are actually regions of lava plains
so they’re not mountainous.
– [Narrator] Not so long ago it was the Soviet
and America superpowers that were locked in a race
to land on the moon.
Now it’s Bob and Naveen who are leading the competition
to mine precious metals from its surface.
– Are we still on track to land on the moon by 2015?
– [Bob] We’re still on track Naveen.
– Initially we thought the mission was going to cost us
about $100,000,000.
Do you think we can bring the cost down
to say 50,000,000 to $60,000,000?
– [Bob] Yeah, even less.
– Even less?
– I think the first mission will be under 50
and subsequent missions may be under 40.
– When would we be able to tell your honey
that I want to take you to the moon?
– [Bob] 10 years.
– 10 years.
– Not only will it be a honeymoon
but I can take my honey to the moon,
and I think that’ll be the killer.
– If you can do that, that’s real business.
(laughs)
If we can go to the moon for $50,000,000
the cost comes down to 20 and we’re able to bring back
the things worth $500,000,000,000
I don’t care what anybody says, that’s a great business.
Somebody is going to create a trillion dollar industry
in space and we sure hope it’s us.
When you tell somebody what you’re doing
and they don’t think it’s a crazy idea
then you’re thinking too small.
So when you walk up to a party and people say
“What do you do?
“Well, I mine the moon.
“Well that’s crazy.
“Well, I’m thinking big.”
As a young entrepreneur I learned several valuable lessons
but I think the most valuable lesson I learned
was trusting your own gut instinct.
It’s not about the spreadsheets, it’s not about the numbers,
it is about what you feel in your heart.
Just remember there’s so many valuables in the real life,
especially you can never capture them.
The brain only works on the logic of zeros and one
and it doesn’t know how
to deal with a lot of the gray areas.
Your gut, your heart is a chemical computer.
It computes things on a fuzzy, fuzzy magic, fuzzy logic.
That means a lot of the times you start to feel
that something doesn’t feel right
even though the numbers do add up.
Never be afraid to fail.
Entrepreneurs never fail.
Their ideas may or may not work
and you know what entrepreneurs do?
They pivot!
Pivot is a way of saying I have found a stepping stone
to even bigger success.
So the way you do that is always never let the ideas
that has not worked become the failure of a person.
You are the person becomes better every time
and the more have you feel the more arrows in your back
so after a third time you can go to anyone and say,
“Sir, I am the right CEO
“because I know exactly what not do to three times over.”
I wake up about 4:30 and five and between five and 5:15.
I am working on email, catching up on news,
looking at the blogs, looking at the different opinions
because people just don’t sleep.
I mean they’re working 24/7.
Somewhere around the world people are awake and working
so you’re always constantly being bombarded
with request information or just sometimes news.
And so in the morning I wake up and I take care of my mind.
(soft techno music)
And then after that
I workout and that’s taking care of my body.
(music covers dialog)
And then I do meditate before I go to work
so that takes care of my soul.
In a business is like a war
you have to be completely prepared
and unless you have mind, body, and soul
really all ready for it you just can’t fight that battle.
Don’t limit yourself.
Go out and pursue your dreams
even if you know nothing about what you’re going to do,
go out and do that.
Every time you have a self doubt just remember
that every single successful company
goes through a near-death experience
before they go out and become successful.
It is the mindset.
And also people talk about
people are optimistic or pessimistic
so they look at whether the glass is half empty
or half full.
To me that’s really the wrong question to ask.
The only thing you as an entrepreneur should think about is
do I want to fill this glass?
And the next question you ask what do I want to fill it with?
It doesn’t matter what it looks like.
Your job is to imagine and dream
about what you want it to be.
The biggest problems are really the social problems
and if you can solve them it’s a massive opportunity.
Dream so big that people think you’re crazy
and never be afraid to fail.
If you want to make a billion dollars
all you have to do is solve a $10,000,000,000 problem.
So go out and find a way
to provide the fresh water to the humanity.
Go out and find a clean solution for energy.
Go out and find a solution to agriculture.
Find a solution to poverty.
All of these $100,000,000,000 problem.
So don’t them as a problem think of them
as a great entrepreneur opportunity
and solving any of these problems
will make you a billionaire.
Another valuable lesson I learned was being persistent
while being flexible.
A lot of entrepreneurs spend way too much time
writing a business plan rather than really doing things.
As you’re continue doing execute you’ll find new things.
You will learn new valuables.
The trick is to have your business plan
which only provides you the guidelines but not the roadmap
because as you’re going out and doing things in real world
you will find things will never ever turn out to be
the way you expected them when you started a business.
Don’t try to stick to your business plan
or spend too much time writing a business plan
but learn as you’re executing on a business plan
and you will find yourself to be successful.
– [Narrator] For Naveen the billionaire formula is simple.
– What makes a successful person?
They go out and solve big problems.
So you know how to make a billion dollars?
You solve a $10,000,000,000 problem.
– [Narrator] Having already made his billions
he now unashamedly wants to use his business brain
to change our world.
– Let’s focus on education, healthcare, energy,
shortage of water, shortage of food
and I’m going to tell you how innovation and entrepreneurship
can solve each of these problems.
Let’s look at education.
Imagine if you are able to use a $25 tablet
and build some type of a game that’s more effective
than a private tutor and is more addictive
than the most addictive video game.
Think about it, one day a child is going to come to the mother
and say, “Mom, can I just play one more hour of math?
“Because I enjoy it so much.”
– [Narrator] Naveen has a knack of putting people
under his spell.
Making his mission
to solve some of mankind’s biggest problems seem plausible
in space and on Earth.
– What if we can build an artificial intelligence system
that can be used by a village girl?
She will be able to go door and able to diagnose a disease.
There are no healthcare, there’s no hospitals,
there are no doctors.
– [Narrator] These are big ideas
that could turn a big profit
but some of them seem a bit farfetched.
– What if you take a 3D printer on the moon?
And somebody can go out and send the DNA
of a bacteria or a virus and we print it right there
and leave it on the moon
and watch it grow.
– [Interviewer] These ideas, they’re a bit out there
aren’t they, Naveen?
Don’t people think you’re just a bit mad?
– The point is, the reason they think it’s mad
because it’s already,
they don’t know it’s already happening.
The things that used to be science fiction
are now becoming science reality.
So I think a lot of the times,
and this is just, it’s totally off the topic,
but people come to the conferences with agenda.
They have a hidden agenda.
They want to get something done.
They want to be politically correct.
They cannot be themselves and they are told
never be vulnerable.
Imagine what you do not build the deep relationship
with a person unless you can be vulnerable,
unless you can share your emotional connection with a person
you can never build deep connection.
People measure their success when they leave the conference
how many business card they give
and how many business card they collected.
Guess what?
If you ever think you have more than five people
that you met in the conference that you think
you have a friendship with,
you have a friendship with no one.
You have to spend time.
You have to connect with people.
You have to give yourself to them
and you have to let your heart in their hand
and say, “I trust you.”
And when you do that that is the time
you build the deep relationship
when you leave this conference,
they become your lifelong friends.
So make one, two, three, or four those lifelong friends
when you go to a conference, find a like-minded person
who is going out, is going to go make the change,
who’s going to go out in a journey with you
to go out and change the world.
To me doing well by doing good is my philosophy.
That means you can create a great venture
and if the venture can do good
that becomes a philanthropic adventure for my perspective.
To me you can’t create a $10,000,000,000
by solving a $1,000,000,000 problem.
To me you have to go out
and solve a $100,000,000,000 problem
and it so happens those $100,000,000,000 problems
are massive social problems which are education,
the healthcare, the clean water, the energy.
And if you can go provide access to education in healthcare
to billions of people around the world
and if you happen to make $100,000,000,000 profit,
my hat’s off to you.
That’s a great venture and that’s what you want people to do
is not to separate doing well from doing good
because you can do both, and that’s how you create
scalable, sustainable change.
Well the last and the most valuable lesson
as an entrepreneur I learned
was about the value of execution.
Way too many people, way too many people
spend too much time thinking about the vision.
We are taught that you have to build a better mousetrap.
Every venture capitalist will tell you
that to be a successful entrepreneur
you need to breakthrough innovation.
Well you have to assume none of us or at least most of us
are not the smartest people in the world.
There are lots and lots of great, great inventors out there.
How are we going to be the person
who is going to always build a better mousetrap?
Well, to be successful
you don’t have to build a better mousetrap.
You just have to build a different mousetrap
and as long as you’re executing well
the business always comes down to block and tackle.
It’s not about the great vision
it’s always about the great execution.
And you can always succeed by out executing your competitors
not necessarily having the best product in the marketplace
and I think Microsoft is a great example
where they took a same product
that other people may have had
but they executed substantially better
and today they’re the market leader in the industry.
– Thank you guys so much for watching.
I made this video because Ali asked me to
and thank you so much ’cause this was one of the most fun
and inspiring Top 10s that I think we’ve ever put together.
At least I was extremely inspired by it
and I love all my Top 10s
but this one was especially inspiring.
So thank you so much for that ask.
And if you guys have somebody
that you’d like to see profiled next,
a famous entrepreneur that you want to be inspired by
please leave it in the comments below
and I’ll see what I can do.
I’d also love to know what rule
had the biggest impact on you and why?
What lesson are you going to apply to your life
for business immediately?
Leave it in the comments below.
I’m going to join in the discussion.
Finally I wanted to give a quick shoutout to Mihovil.
Thank you so much for picking up a copy of my book
“Your One Word” it really, really, really
means a lot to me.
So thank you guys again for watching.
I believe in you.
I hope you continue to believe in yourselves
and whatever your one is, much love, I’ll see you soon.
– Think differently.
It’s not about thinking outside the box
it’s about thinking in a different box.
If you become an expert in your field
you become absolutely useless in your field
because the day you become an expert
you become incrementalist.
You think about incremental evolution.
So if you want to disrupt something
go out in a completely different industry
that you know nothing about
because then you’re thinking abstract.
So never be afraid to talk about your problem
to someone who knows nothing about your industry
because they will come up with the ways
that you have never thought before.
Making money is a byproduct of doing things
that you really enjoy doing,
it is never a goal in itself.
And it’s like having sex and orgasm,
you have to enjoy the process and not focus on the end goal.
People actually who focus on end goal
like getting an orgasm never get one.
As I was in college I learned a couple of valuable lessons
one of them was passion.
We have a lot of distractions in life
but there’s some things that are really important to us.
We spend our waking hours and our sleeping time
all thinking about that particular thing.
Once you find that passion you will find
that it’s no longer a work it becomes your life,
it consumes you.
So find something that you’re really, really excited about
and devote your life to it.
”
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