Latest / Success Story with Scott Clary / Lessons - How a Traffic Jam Became a $1.1B Company | Uri Levine - Waze Co-Founder (Sold to Google)

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Lessons - How a Traffic Jam Became a $1.1B Company | Uri Levine - Waze Co-Founder (Sold to Google) · Success Story with Scott Clary

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  In this lessons episode, explore how entrepreneurs balance persistence with knowing
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  when to walk away from a venture, discover how to treat product development as a series
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  of experiments to find what works, understand when to shut down by recognizing a
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  disappearing problem, or misaligned team, and uncover why falling in love with the problem
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  creates clarity, resilience, and long-term success.
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  And let's ask you something about failures because you mentioned something very
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  important, failing fast. So in that in that startup that failed, how did you know
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  when it was time to call it quits? How do you fail fast? How did you fail fast?
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  So let's separate between shutting down a company and failures or errors or mistakes
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  throughout the journey. Because the journey is very important in the sense that you have
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  everything that you would have in your roadmap. For me, it's a list of experiments that you're
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  going to conduct. And you will try with the first one that you think that is going to work.
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  And you will end with the first one that is actually working.
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  There is a nice story that I heard about LinkedIn. I don't know how true it is, but for a second,
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  I would say, let's assume for a second that it's true. And if it's not true, then assume that it
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  is true for the sake of the discussion, right? And when LinkedIn started, they actually
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  had 30 features that they wanted to develop. And they basically said, this is the minimum product.
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  And when they started to meet investors, everyone told them that 30 features is way too long.
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  And they need to reduce that list to less than that. And they ended up with a list of 10 features
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  that they said, we cannot even launch the product without those 10 features. Obviously, LinkedIn
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  started and eventually they were becoming public and then acquired by Microsoft and then
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  becoming public again. But the first time that they went public, how many of those 10 features they
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  actually developed? And the answer is one, just one. So in that sense, they were lucky that they
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  figure out the first feature that they need to develop at the beginning. I don't know how true
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  this story is, but for the sake of the discussions, let's assume that it is. The road map is
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  eventually a list of features that you're going to develop. And each one of them has an
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  objectives to figure out product market fit. And if they do, then the product development is done.
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  And if they're not, then then you try another one. And that is the important part of the
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  failures. So you don't stick with something that doesn't work. You keep on trying, you keep on
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  trying different things. For the question, when do you know that it's time to shut down a company?
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  You eventually fall in love with the problem. And once you start to build your team, this is your
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  mission in life. You will never give up and never giving up. Preserverancy is the most important
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  behavior for an entrepreneur. Not necessarily of a CEO, but for an entrepreneur, they don't give up.
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  And if you would ask me, how do you know that it's time to give up? So number one, you never know.
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  You don't know. Number two, I would add my advice that is basically saying, look, if one of the two
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  following is happened, then you should give up. One is that the problem disappears.
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  The first startup that we started in year 2000, it called Access Mobile. And what we try to do
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  is actually provide an email access through WAP phones, right? So very, very long time ago.
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  And the problem disappeared as soon as Blackberry started, right? So there was sort of a very
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  different approach for the solution, which made our solution irrelevant. And to a certain
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  example, I would say the problem disappeared. So if problem disappears, you should quit.
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  The other reason is if the team is not right and you're unable to change that.
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  If you're the CEO, then you should be able in a position to change that, but in many cases, you don't.
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  And then you end up with a place that might have the right mission, but not the right DNA. And you
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  don't want to stay in a place like that. So this is time to shut it down. These are the only two
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  reasons that I can figure out why you should quit. And in general, I would say, look,
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  the winners, they don't give up. I know that's something. So I think that what I value that
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  lesson so much because the concept of never giving up, it does conflict with the concept of
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  of failing quickly. So it's good to have an understanding of what your organization is growing into
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  what you're, again, the problem you're trying to solve is it's still there. And then the other
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  point you mentioned, the right people, but let's talk about the problem, right? I mean,
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  you wrote a book. And I'm stopping you for a second. The thing of the following. When you go
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  into this journey, there is a problem that you're trying to address. And this is becoming your
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  mission, right? So for a second, I would say if the mission is right and the team is right,
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  then you shouldn't give up. If one of them is going away, then you should start to consider,
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  if both of them, then definitely you should consider it of giving up. But the journey of failures
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  is not about the essence of the start of the essence of the start of is about the problem that
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  are trying to solve the value that they are about to create. And it's about the way to get there.
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  And the way to get there is a journey of failures. Understood. I understand. Okay. I want to
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  understand the title of the book that you wrote, fallen love with the problem, not the solution.
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  So we're dancing around this now, but speak to me about what it means to truly fall in love with
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  the problem. What problem did you fall in love with when you built ways? I hate traffic jams.
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  It's a good problem. You know, end of the day, and I'm pretty sure that you have met many
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  entrepreneurs. They all have a starting point that has that touched them on a personal level,
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  right? And not all, but most of them. And in many cases, this is about frustration. So you're
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  running to something and you ended up being frustrated. And then you tell yourself, no, no, no,
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  this is something that I'm going to change. There is no way that this is how it works.
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  And this is the key driver for most of my startups is running into situations that they tell
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  myself, wait a minute, they mind the only one that is getting frustrated because of that.
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  And then you start to discuss that with or speak with other people until you realize that this
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  problem is real or at least the perception of the problem is real. And so for me, you know,
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  the journey is always about starting with a problem. So finding a problem, a big problem,
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  something that it's worth solving, something that the world will become a better place if we solve that.
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  And then the next thing that you really would like to do is ask yourself, so who has this problem?
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  Now, if you happen to be the only person on the planet with this problem, then I would say,
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  go to a shrink. It's much cheaper than building a startup, right? But if a lot of people actually
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  have this problem, then go and speak with those people and understand their perception of the
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  problem and only then build a solution. Now, if you follow this path and your solution works,
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  it's guaranteed that you're creating value. If you start with a solution, you might be building
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  something, but nothing that no one cares. And that's really not a good idea.
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  So when I say falling love with the problem, what it really means is start with the problem,
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  but there is way more into that. The problem then remains the north star of your entire journey.
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  And every day you're asking yourself, if I'm making a progress towards addressing this problem,
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  and so if the problem was for way down, the reason that we start is that we hate traffic jams,
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  we evolved that into a mission to help drivers to avoid traffic jams. Because the solution for
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  the problem is very easy, avoiding the problem. So getting rid of the problem, problem disappears,
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  or we are avoiding that or overcoming that, and that makes it easy. As long as you keep that as the
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  north star of your company, then you increase the likelihood of being successful. And you increase
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  the likelihood by basically saying, I know where I'm going. I don't know what's the next step,
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  or I do know what's next step, but I have no idea what's the step after next, but I know where I'm
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  going. The other part of it is that it makes your story so much easier to be told that your
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  marketing is becoming easier. Your fundraising is becoming easier. Everything is creating
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  or the entire story is much easier. Because if I will tell you, I'll have a time machine,
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  we will roll back in 2007, and I will come into this podcast. Well, that podcast wasn't here,
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  I think, in 2000. It wasn't, but I get the point. But that assumed that we are, and I will tell you,
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  I'm building an AI crowdsource navigation system, then you don't really care. But if I will tell
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  you, I'm helping you to avoid traffic jams and all of a sudden you do care. And so the story is
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  easier to be told. And usually story, you know, when you tell a story about the problem, then
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  there is an emotional engagement for many of the people, in particular, if they have experienced
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  similar problems or the same problem. So falling in love with the problem, essentially increase
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  your likelihood of being successful, increase the likelihood of becoming a market leader through
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  two main things, right? The North Star. And therefore, the mission of the companies is is
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  clearer and easier and remains the same throughout the entire journey. And the story that can
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  tell is much easier. Thanks for tuning in. If you found this valuable, don't forget to hit that
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  subscribe button so you never miss an episode. And if you want to dive deeper into this conversation,
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  check out the links in the description to watch the full episode. See you in the next one.