Bill Gross, Chairman & Founder of Idealab
Today, my guest is Bill Gross, Caltech Trustee and fellow Caltech Alumni, Chairman and Founder of Idealab.
Bill started his first company in grade school selling candy bars at the bus stop (his version of the lemonade stand) and now starts about 8-10 new companies every year.
He comes up with new business ideas almost daily and he says the biggest limitation with starting companies is not time or money, it's finding the right people -- and having the right timing!
In this candid conversation, Bill shared the real stories behind his earliest entrepreneurial ventures, his scientific approach to killing bad ideas, and why timing is the ultimate deciding factor for any startup.
1. Gross National Products. Bill revealed that his entrepreneurial journey actually began in junior high by simply selling candy bars at the bus stop. Later, during the 1973 energy crisis in high school, he created and sold solar energy kits through the back of Popular Science magazine. By the time he reached college, he was building and selling custom audio loudspeakers to his fellow students under the clever name "Gross National Products" (G&P).
2. The Science of Killing Ideas. Despite naturally generating an idea a day and maintaining a massive spreadsheet with over 2,000 entries, Bill explained that the hardest part of his job at IdeaLab is knowing when to pull the plug on a struggling venture. He relies heavily on the "lean startup" methodology, treating businesses like scientific experiments. If a startup's tests yield diminishing learning returns and they fail to find a way to break out of their doldrums, he forces the discipline to officially end the idea so they can move on.
3. The "I Wish There Were" Mindset. While his ability to generate constant ideas seems like a superpower, Bill insists that almost anyone can do it because it merely requires a mindset of actively observing daily pain points. Whether he is walking through a city wishing for a "heatmap" app that tracks the footprints of fellow foodies and archaeologists, or discussing an Uber-like gas delivery service, his concepts constantly stem from simply looking at the world and thinking, "I wish there were".
4. The Crucial Element of Timing. Reflecting on ideas that failed, Bill shared that he attempted to invent a "quantified self" wearable health tracker in 2000—aimed at predicting medical ailments—long before the term or smartphones even existed. He also worked on a hyper-efficient single-person commuter vehicle years before the current boom of modern electric cars. Instead of being upset about being a visionary who was simply "too early," these experiences taught him that assessing the market's timing is often just as important, if not more so, than the actual quality of the idea.
