elonology.com

Tag: Business Development

  • Think Long Term

    Think Long Term

    The ability to delay gratification is one of the most accurate predictors of future success.

    Business is more like a marathon than a sprint.

    Because long term potential often trumps the short term.

    “You do want to have a significant financial reward. And you want to have a possible effect on the world.”

    Think about the best case probabilities and how you can get them done over time.

    And realize: “The first step is to establish something is possible; then probability will occur.”

    think-long-term

    Prioritize the actions which are most important to get your company to cash flow positive.

    Then once you have brainstormed the probabilities of different actions create a plan of action and energetically pursue your best action path.

  • The Recipe for Business Success

    The Elon Musk Recipe: How to Create and Scale a Successful Startup

    Interviewer: “You’ve mostly created new companies.  What is your recipe for that?”

    Elon: “Well I think it’s quite difficult to create a new company and have it be successful.  And generally I do not recommend creating new companies unless you feel very compelled to do so…

    It’s quite difficult.  But I mean the basics of starting a company are: 

    You have to have an idea that is compelling or you have to have a product that you think could be very valuable to the world.

    And then you’ve got to find alot of talented people and convince them to do this new thing…

    Because talented people are already doing something.  So you have to convince them to do the new thing.  And it’s pretty hard to do that.  

    And then you have to build the company up.  And the company goes through a life cycle.  Like a human.  Or like any animal.  They start out very simple.  Like one cell.  Then a few more cells and then it’s…kind of like a baby, and then a toddler and then the lifecycle of a company is very much like that of a creature, and you have to reinvent the company at every stage.”

    So this is why some companies get to be a large size and some do not.  It’s because you actually have to reconfigure the company at each of the various stages in its lifecycle.

  • Improvise and Keep Moving Forward

    When SpaceX was told to wait to launch rockets in the U.S. Elon went and found an island in the Pacific he could use straight away.

    Elon once jumped on his private jet and flew to England to take a needed machine tool to a factory in France and speed up production.

    When Tesla needed to test a prototype in the cold he hired an ice-cream truck with a big refrigerated trailer.

    When there is a will there is often a way.

    When you are willing to improvise and take action to solve the problems you face this will help you find your way through the darkness of despair and into the brightness of success.