← Success Story with Scott D. Clary
Success Story with Scott D. Clary
Lessons - Why Your Best Ideas Will Fail | Marc Randolph - Netflix Co-Founder
00:15:30
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- [00:00]
A
Indeed is a success story. Partner. Now here's your tech hiring tip of the week from Indeed. 73% of tech workers say flexibility is one of their top priorities. So if your job posting doesn't mention flexible hours or remote options, you're basically invisible to three out of four candidates. Keep that in mind. Look, hiring tech talent right now, it's tough. You are competing for people with super specific skills. Everyone wants hybrid work and the salary expectations are through the roof. It's a lot. That's why Indeed actually makes sense. They're the number one place where tech people go to apply for jobs. We're talking 3 million tech professionals in the US and 86% of them have applied through Indeed. It's not just some job board where you post and pray. They've got tools like smart searching and their tech network that uses AI to connect you with people who actually have the skills that you need. Companies using the tech network saw over four times more relevant applications. That's huge more qualified people. Way less time wasted. Whenever I've needed tech talent in the past, Indeed is the only platform I choose. And if I needed to hire top tier tech talent today, I'd still go with Indeed. Post your first job and get $75 off at indeed.comtechtalent that's indeed.comtechtalent to claim this offer. Indeed. Build for what's now and what's next in tech hiring. In this lessons episode, explore why entrepreneurial success depends less on perfect ideas and more on rapid collisions with reality. Discover how embracing flawed concepts accelerates iteration. Understand why quick and simple tests reveal insights that planning cannot. And uncover how creativity and persistence Dr. Founders towards solutions that truly work.
- [01:44]
So that was the. That was the first iteration of Netflix. And I want to pick up on some themes that have sort of permeated that process, but also things that obviously you speak about now. So before we go down that story even further, the concept of it will never work. The game that you played, why is that your core theme? What does that mean? Why is it so important? This is an entrepreneurial lesson.
- [02:09]
B
Well, on the surface, every single person who has an idea, who fancies themselves an entrepreneur, hears that. It's what everybody says when you come rushing with great excitement into the office to tell them this new idea. It's what your wife says to you. It's what your investors say to you. It's what your employees say to you. It is the universal response to I've got an idea.
- [02:38]
But I've realized that nobody has any clue whether it's going to work or not, that in fact there is no possible way to really know in advance whether an idea is a good idea or a bad idea without trying it. So that will never work. You know, it's the name of the book, that's the name of the podcast, it's the name of the clubhouse room. All the things I do revolve around that will never work. Because it's a reminder to me, and I hope to everybody that it's just unknowable and that if you let someone say someone tells you that will never work and you walk away from that going, oh, I guess it won't work, you've made a grave mistake that what you have to do is go, well, we'll see, and then move to that next phase of saying we're going to figure out some way to find out.
- [03:34]
A
But that also ties into another theme that you speak about quite often where no ideas are good ideas. So it's a, it's almost at a high level without understanding, it's conflicting. But walk me through the the no ideas are good ideas concept as well.
- [03:49]
B
So anyone who's worked in any kind of corporate setting has sat in on a brainstorming meeting where the well meaning moderator gets up in front of the group and goes, okay, let's get some ground rules here. Rule number one for this brainstorming session is there's no such thing as a bad idea. And I call bullshit on that. I think in fact there's plenty of bad ideas. In fact, I'll go out on a limb and say they're all bad ideas. In fact, there's no such thing as a good idea. Every idea is flawed, they're all not going to work. There's always something wrong. I have never found a successful company that became successful doing the thing they originally envisioned. And if you recognize that no such thing as a good idea, that they're all bad ideas, what you recognize is it's futile to keep searching for this perfect idea. That in fact what I've got to do is recognize the skill here is not coming up with good ideas. The skill is figuring out a clever way to try something to quickly and cheaply and easily collide your idea with reality. That's why this I, I harp on the fact that there's no such thing as a good idea. I don't want people to get stuck in this ruddo. I've gotta, I keep finding flaws in my. Listen, forget it. Stop thinking about it. Start doing something, take the idea and as soon as you can collide it with the reality and you are going to find out that it's a bad idea. But that's fine. But the important thing is not that it's bad. The idea is why is it bad? Because usually in association with all the reasons, you realize it's not going to work as you envisioned. You, it informs your intuition, you get some insight into what might work and you come oh, okay, let's try this and let's try this. And it's that process of iteration, of jumping from stepping stone to stepping stone that ultimately does lead you to a place which is interesting. And you know, I've, I've worked with so many companies, you know, the size of companies that I've done. But since I left Netflix, which is, you know, 15 plus years ago, I've now had a chance to work with hundreds of early stage companies and thousands of entrepreneurs. And over and over and over again, the things that finally work are never the first thing you try. It's always this really interesting process of starting and seeing where those collisions with real people lead you.
- [06:30]
A
SurveyMonkey is a success story partner. Now look, we get it. You can hardly go anywhere or do anything these days without hearing about AI this or AI that. And if you're like, like most people when it comes to AI, you're impressed, but you have a few concerns. But what if AI was used not as a tool to replace people, but as a way to help understand people better? AI from Survey Monkey is designed to do just that. From crafting the perfect survey, which is harder than you might think, to analysis that digs deep, finds patterns and surfaces trends quickly. SurveyMonkey's powerful suite of AI capabilities makes it faster and easier than ever before to get insight from real people, helping you make confident decisions for your business. Try it today at surveymonkey.com/Scott HubSpot Podcast Network is a success story partner. If you like Success Story, you are going to love some other great shows in the HubSpot podcast network. It is the audio destination for business professionals. One of my favorite is Business Made Simple. It's hosted by Donald Miller, an incredible friend, a great entrepreneur. Business Made simple takes the mystery out of growing your business. So if you're trying to figure out how to get to the next level, what Donald does is he gives you tactical steps that actually move the needle in your business. You can go listen to Business Made simple anywhere you get your podcast. Business Made simple, part of the HubSpot Podcast Network indeed is a success story partner. Now here's your tech hiring tip of the week from Indeed. 73% of tech workers say flexibility is one of their top priorities. So if your job posting doesn't mention flexible hours or remote options, you're basically invisible to three out of four candidates. Keep that in mind. Look, hiring tech talent right now, it's tough. You are competing for people with super specific skills. Everyone wants hybrid work and the salary expectations are through the roof. It's a lot. That's why Indeed actually makes sense. They're the number one place where tech people go to apply for jobs. We're talking 3 million tech professionals in the US and 86% of them have applied through Indeed. It's not just some job board where you post and pray. They've got tools like smart searching and their tech network that uses AI to connect you with people who actually have the skills that you need. Companies using the tech network saw over four times more relevant applications. That's huge. More qualified people, way less time wasted. Whenever I've needed tech talent in the past, Indeed is the only platform I choose. And if I needed to hire top tier tech talent today, I'd still go with Indeed. Post your first job and get $75 off at Indeed.comTechTalent that's Indeed.comTechTalent to claim this offer. Indeed. Build for what's now and what's next in tech hiring. Why do you think that so many entrepreneurs seem to over iterate on that MVP as opposed to trying to have that conflict and real feedback with reality, with real people to actually validate very similar to the way that you did with just simply mailing, you know, a music CD to, to Reid's house.
- [09:24]
B
Do you have a. I think listen, if you're built, if you're building an mvp, you're building a minimal bible product. You're building too much. And the problem and it's whether it's an mvp, whether it's actually raising money, all these things that people do because they think that's how this works. You get emotionally invested in an approach and the more effort you put into that approach, the harder it is for you to acknowledge it's not working. The harder it is to walk away from it. I mean, even a minimal viable product sometimes takes weeks or months or tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of dollars. And so you're not about to go, oh, didn't work. Okay, abandon this, let's try something new. Which is why you've got to figure out ways to do it super cheaply, super, simply, super quickly and it's parsing it apart. You want to build a minimal unviable product. And listen, I gotta, I'll give you a very con. A couple concrete examples here.
- [10:28]
You do not need to test all the components of your idea because most of the components of your idea, if you begin parsing it apart are not. Don't need to be tested. You don't need to say, can we build an app? You don't need to worry, is someone going to trust me with their credit card? You don't need to worry about whether your app can know where you are. I mean this stuff has been generated not just that it's technically possible, but that customers accept all these things and you begin to isolate in on what's the one piece of it that I truly don't understand. Listen, rather than wasting time with kind of gives high level Instagram worthy quote tile, let me give you a specific.
- [11:11]
A
Those are also good. But I mean, yeah, they want you not.
- [11:14]
B
It's like, but it's like junk food. You nod your head and go, oh, that's so interesting. And then you go back and go, wait, wait, wait, how, how do I, how do I do this?
- [11:23]
A
In fact, okay, let's have some real examples then. Let's have a, let's have something promotion aspect here.
- [11:28]
B
It's the point of the podcast that I do, which is I could certainly go on social media and say, you know, the trick is to quickly, easily clutter the reality and it won't nod, but then it's missing the how. And so in the podcast I'll sit down with someone for half an hour, an hour, who has an idea and will brainstorm through how and you see how this works. But let me give you a specific example. You do it right now. This is from two or three years ago, a bit more than that actually. And as a young woman in college and had an idea and I do a bunch of mentoring work at universities and she goes, I had this great idea, quote unquote, she wants to do peer to peer clothing sharing. She goes, I have all this stuff in my closet that I never wear. I know all my friends have stuff that they don't wear. Wouldn't it be great if we had this huge network of people who were all showing us their clothes, we could all borrow each other's clothes. And I go, okay, pretty cool. What are you, what, what are you worrying about? And she goes, well, I. Should I quit school or do this? How do I raise money when I'm just a student? Or how do I Find a, a technical co founder to build this app for me. And I'm like, whoa, whoa, slow down. Or more importantly, speed up. I go, let's figure out quickly, cheaply and easily whether your idea is a good idea or not. Do you have a piece of paper? And she goes, yes, I'm a college student, I have paper. I go, fine, do you have a Sharpie? She goes, yeah, I can find a Sharpie. I go, great. So I want you to do is hit the paper. I want you to write in the paper. Want to borrow my clothes, Knock and I want you to tape it right now to your dorm room door. And we're going to start this experiment now.
- [13:19]
And you're going to find something out. Either no one's going to knock. Well, then you've learned something pretty important right there. But let's say people do knock. Well, you're going to learn the next phase. Okay, first of all there's interest. But now what happens, other problems with fit, Are there problems with style? Are there problems with taste? And let's say there is a match that way. Now you're going to find out the next thing. How do you feel when your blouse comes back stained or torn?
- [13:47]
How do you think about the fact you now have to bring everything to the dry cleaners and all of a sudden this begins costing you more? Let's say it all works and all of a sudden you're going to start this process of learning and recognize how many times does someone repeat how do I find people to do this? And you're going to do all of this not by building an app, not by raising money, not by starting a company. You're to do it with three by five cards or a yellow pad. You're going to do this in a non repeatable, non scalable way because you're going to figure it out on the ground. But the point was her problem wasn't what can I make an app? How do I get credit cards? How do I. Yes, those are things she would have to do if she was to make it a real business. But she narrowed it down to the fundamental problem was does anyone care? And I can find that out with a piece of paper and a Sharpie. Okay, now I wonder the problems with fit and taste and style. I can find that out on a very, very small scale test of people who live in my hall. And then what will happen is hopefully after six months of doing this out of her dorm room with three by five cards and a yellow pad and going crazy because it's so manual and so labor int. And so inefficient. But that's great because then when it comes time to say, I think I might like to make this a real business, and you go to raise money, you're not waving your arms and going, imagine if you will, you're able to say, I understand now what the repeat rate is. I know what the average order size is, I know what my churn is, I know my acquisition costs are. Or even more importantly, rather than going to an engineering friend and saying, I want you to build my idea, which I can assure you as the marketing guy, never works, you sit down and go, let me show you what I'm doing. And I'm doing it all with paper. I'm doing the three by five cards. And. And that's when people lean in and go, oh, that's so cool. Maybe we could do it this way or this way. And they get pulled into the problem. So it solves so many problems. But the fundamental one is rather than dreaming about it, you do it quickly and easily and cheaply by parsing out what's the one thing that you really need to test. And once you've figured out that one thing, usually that one thing can be tried without technology, without raising money, without other people, without an office, without quitting school, without leaving your day job, without mortgaging your house, you can do it on the side. You can do it quickly, cheaply and easily. It's the trick, the thing that's the most important thing, I believe, for an entrepreneur who's starting something. And what I look for in the entrepreneurs that I want to work with is not how good their idea is, because as we mentioned, I fundamentally believe all ideas are bad ideas. What I'm looking for is do I think this person has the creativity and the persistence to say, I'm going to figure out quick, cheap and easy ways to try this and keep trying things until I finally stumble on something that actually does work. You mentioned, why do people stick with their MVPs for too long? Because they put so much time and effort into it, they're not willing to walk away. But if you stick something on the front of your dorm room, you wrote in a piece of paper and that doesn't work well, you wad it up, you throw it in the trash, and you write something different the next day, and then you wad that up and throw that in the trash and try something different the third day, and eventually someone knocks. That's the process.
- [17:29]
A
Thanks for tuning in. If you found this valuable don't forget to hit that subscribe button so you never miss an episode. And if you want to dive deeper into this conversation, check out the links in the description to watch the full episode. See you in the next one.