NED Talks presents Suneel Gupta

Thank you all very much. I do appreciate the invitation from both Mike and Mike. I've been trying to think about what I wanted to talk about today, and it's sometimes hard because the people here at Northwestern, especially for something like this, you already have a pretty accomplished group of people who are doing interesting things, on their way to do interesting things, or already have done interesting things. So the question I have is, what can I potentially try to talk to you about today? And what I came out with was the case again someday. But let me back up for a minute. This building is actually kind of special for me because it's good to be back on campus, but I particularly enjoyed walking by this building because it reminded me of my mom, who worked at Ford Motor Company for 35 years. Her story kind of relates a lot to what I want to talk to you about today. As a little girl in a rural area in Feroke, India, she had the idea that she wanted to be an engineer. At that time, the career potential for a woman was incredibly limited. She fought her family, fought her friends, fought universities, fought hiring managers, and finally became the first female engineer to work at Ford Motor Company, which is something that humbles me every time I think about it. So anyway, this building reminds me a lot of her, and I'm incredibly humbled to be here. A lot of what I wanted to share with you today are things that she passed on to my brother and me. There are really three things, and I actually don't have a lot of slides, so I think we'll have some time for questions, and I do look forward to that. But these three things all sort of roll up into this idea of the case again someday. It really begins with the first point: conditions are never perfect, so begin now. Before I really dive into this, let me just say that the word 'someday' is used a lot, especially in conversations with students at these universities and with many of my peers. We all have ideas, things we want to accomplish, products we want to build, businesses we want to run, screenplays we want to write, books we want to write. Often, we don't pursue those goals or ideas because we feel the timing isn't right. So the first idea I want to propose is that conditions will never be perfect, so start now. How many of you watch TED? Have you heard of TED? Great, so pretty much all of you. The TED Talks are fantastic. About a year ago, a guy named Simon Sinek gave a talk about powered flight in the early 20th century, which was really amazing. He talked about how powered flight in a lot of ways is very similar to the dot-com era of today. You have the most brilliant minds in the space competing to solve important problems. That was the same way with powered flight back in the early 20th century. If you really think about why people don't pursue a business or try to solve a problem, it's usually a permutation of two things: not enough capital and not enough talent. Those are the two ideas where people let themselves get blocked from pursuing their business or product. So getting back to powered flight, in the early 20th century, people were trying to solve this problem, and a lot of people were getting into the game. One of those people was a guy by the name of Samuel Pierpont Langley. Langley had all the things we think about when we think about the ingredients of how to start a successful business or venture. First of all, the Department of War gave him $50,000, which is a lot of money back then, to solve the problem of powered flight. He was a Harvard-trained scholar and had access to the brightest minds in this country. He could pick up the phone and build a team, which is exactly what he did. He built a world-class team to solve the problem of powered flight, to essentially get the first powered flight experiment off the ground. So why have none of us ever heard of Samuel Pierpont Langley? It's because a few hundred miles away, two quirky brothers, Orville and Wilbur Wright, were trying to solve the same problem, only there were some differences. Number one, there was no pedigree to this team. They owned a small bicycle shop in Dayton, Ohio. Number two, no college education. Not a single person on the Wright Brothers' team had more than a high school education. And number three, really no access to talent. I mean, it was Dayton, Ohio. So all three of these things sort of coming together, but at the same time, these guys realized that this was a problem they wanted to solve. They very easily could have said, 'You know what, the conditions aren't perfect. We don't have the capital, we don't have the talent.' But instead, they dove into the problem. They didn't wait for someday, and that is why today we talk about the Wright Brothers all the time, and that is why none of us, I'm assuming, have ever heard of Samuel Pierpont Langley. But in order to take that first step, to really do something, I think the idea is why we sometimes don't get started on our businesses or pursue our ideas because that first step is really hard. So doing some thinking and talking to people about how they started their new idea, how they took something from concept to reality, what was that very first step? I think what you'll find talking to people who have been successful, particularly in the tech industry, is that that first step is really to draw it out. Some of you may have heard of this concept. It's not complex, but it's amazing how many of us don't do this. So you have an idea for a screenplay, an idea for a book. Taking that idea and actually putting it down on paper, writing a treatment or sketching out a design, is something that very few of us do, but it happens to be the most critical and important step. But don't take it from me, take it from people like Jack Dorsey, the founder of Twitter, on why drawing it out is so important. So what would that look like? I thought about this a lot. There are many sleepless nights. I think everyone in this room has felt the verge of an idea and how it gets you a little bit excited and crazy, and you can't sleep, and you're on a whiteboard or drawing like crazy. But that is one of the most important things to start doing: to start drawing your idea, to start getting it out of your head. Drawing it out is really critical. This is what Twitter looked like in the very beginning: a simple piece of paper, the kind of thing that Jack Dorsey was walking around and sharing with his friends. As you may not be surprised, that paper did not do all that much for him. It didn't help him sell his business. But what he ended up doing was taking something that was really important to him inside his head and starting to flesh it out. He was able to take that piece of paper, share it with friends, get feedback, and eventually develop a prototype, which ended up becoming what a lot of us use today. So drawing it out is a really important step. It may seem basic, but it's amazing how many people who have ideas, who have something great in their mind, won't just take that first step, put it down on paper, and then be willing to share it with other people. That brings me to the third step, related back to Jack Dorsey: this initial prototype was not all that impressive. Something that a lot of people, a lot of venture capitalists in particular, even when it was built into a prototype, said, 'This is the stupidest thing ever. No one's going to use Twitter. It's not something that's going to gain any traction.' And it eventually did and proved everybody wrong. I think part of the reason they were able to prove everybody wrong is because they were able to take that feedback, take what wasn't working, scrap that, take what was working, and build on top of it. That brings me to the third and final point: if you suck at first, you got to keep going. So we talked about the Wright Brothers, we've talked about Twitter. The third and final story, actually the second to last story, is about a guy named Andrew Mason, who was a University of Chicago public policy student in graduate school. He had an idea about how to change the way we do fundraising. What he thought was broken with the fundraising model today is that I will come to you and say, 'Listen, I want to raise $50 to build a school in Ghana. Will you give me $50 for a good cause?' And you may say yes, but you don't really know where that money is going, if it's actually going to be used to build that school, if it's actually going to be meaningful. Would your $50 actually have helped the cause? What Andrew said is, 'Why don't we change that? I'm going to start a campaign. That campaign is going to be however much money I think I need to meet my goal. If it's to build a school in Takoradi, Ghana, then I assume I need $5,000. I'll come and ask you for $50, but here's the trick: until I hit $10,000, no one's credit card gets charged. So I ask all of you to donate $50, and you say, 'I will, but only if you hit that $10,000 mark.' That's a tipping point effect. He bundled that into a product and called it The Point. Check it out. 'Sue looked at the old park with a heavy heart. It had seen better days. She remembered playing on it when she was a kid, but no one had used it for years. Sue's friend told her about a campaign on The Point to fix up the park. 'That's nice, but do you really think enough people will pitch in to get the park where it needs to be? I'd just be throwing my money away.' 'Well, what would it be worth to you to see it fixed?' her friend said. 'If I knew it would actually happen, I'd throw in a couple hundred. My kids would love to be able to use that park.' Her friend said, 'On The Point, you don't actually give any money until you have enough to get the job done.' This made a lot of sense to Sue, so she pledged $200, knowing it would only be taken if they reached the tipping point necessary for the park to be fully restored. Well, there must have been a lot of people like Sue who only wanted to donate if they knew everyone else would too. In short order, they reached the tipping point, and the park was restored to be as beautiful as ever. Community service powered by The Point.' So pretty cool. I love that idea, and I thought it was brilliant when I read about it. I was in San Francisco at the time. It was a brilliant idea. Here's the problem: it wasn't a brilliant business. It wasn't making a profit, and soon The Point and their small team ran out of money, and they didn't really know what to do. Most people, including myself, in that situation probably would have re-enrolled in school, said, 'You know what, I had an idea, I gave it a shot, it didn't work out, it was interesting, but it didn't work out, so I'm going to go back to school.' Not Andrew. What Andrew did is he said, 'You know what, there's this concept that I feel here, this campaign, this tipping point concept. What else can I do with this?' What was interesting is that about two years ago in Chicago, as he was walking around the city, he realized that a lot of local businesses were half empty even on a Friday or Saturday night. They didn't have the business they did a year ago. The economy was tough, people weren't going out enough. So he said, 'Why don't I take this idea of the campaign, of a tipping point, and apply that to help out these local business owners? What if I set up a deal every single day where people could get a great deal on a great local business, but the only trick was that enough people had to join in in order to make the deal activate?' He called it the deal of the day, which ended up becoming a brand you may have heard of: Groupon. Groupon is an easy way to get huge discounts while discovering fun activities in your city. Each day we feature a cool new experience at an unbeatable price in dozens of cities across the country, from restaurants, theaters, spas, stores, and special events. We work with the best local businesses to offer one deal each day at an incredibly low price. Using Groupon is easy. Check in every day to see the new deal, or subscribe to our daily alerts and the deal will be emailed to you each morning. If you see something you want to do, sign up. If enough people sign up, the deal will activate. By requiring a minimum number of buyers, we can guarantee businesses lots of customers and ensure that our subscribers receive maximum discounts. We call it collective buying power. When you find a deal you love, just enter your name and credit card. You won't be charged unless enough people join for the deal to activate. To make sure the deal reaches its minimum, tell your friends using Facebook, Twitter, email, or carrier pigeon. When enough people join, we'll send you your Groupon, which you can print and use like cash. So The Point becomes Groupon. Pretty amazing story. For those of you who haven't read the Forbes article recently, Groupon was called the fastest growing company of all time. Andrew does not regret his decision to not re-enroll in the school of public policy. Things are going pretty well. I want to wrap up here by talking about what I think we're really here to talk about: your craft. I really believe, and I wouldn't be here right now if I didn't, that you all have great ideas within you. It's amazing how many conversations I have with students at Northwestern who have a new idea for something that is great. What I'm really here today to try to convince you to do is not wait. When I was in seventh grade, I talked about my mom earlier. I remember this story pretty well. I was in seventh grade in my social studies class. I didn't enjoy that class all that much, but there was one day in particular that I enjoyed it a lot. It was the day we got to watch JFK's inaugural speech. We would pause it in between, and Mrs. Canow, our teacher, would talk about the speech and what was going on. It fascinated me and made me realize that what I wanted to do with my career was become a speechwriter. That's what I wanted to do. At one point during the speech, she paused it and let us know that it was actually not John F. Kennedy who wrote the speech; it was a guy named Ted Sorensen, who actually wrote the inaugural address that he gave in 1961. I thought that was fascinating. I raced back home, called my mom, and told her that this is what I want to do: I want to be a speechwriter for the rest of my life. What my mom told me was interesting. She said, 'You know what, you don't have to wait. You're 13. You don't have to wait to be a speechwriter. You can do that now. You can just start writing speeches.' That was kind of a ridiculous idea looking back on it, but I did. I started writing speeches. I would write these ridiculous speeches, get on my bike, ride to the offices of local congressmen and local city officials, and essentially hand them speeches. At which point, one of two things happened: I was either asked to leave or asked to stuff envelopes. I would write these speeches, and again, they were ridiculous, but I continuously got better at it. I bring this up because all of us with these ideas have a craft. We have something within us that we love to do, whether or not we're getting paid for it, whether or not it's being used. In my case, none of these speeches were ever getting used, but I was constantly becoming better and better. I was sharing it with people I respected, sharing with my family, they would tell me how I could make the speeches better, share it with friends. Eventually, by the age of 16, I had this useless sort of trait or craft for being able to write good speeches. What happened was a local congressman passed through my town, a guy by the name of Bart Stupak, and I ended up writing a speech for him. I was a little bit older now, about 16 years old. I handed him a speech and told him, 'I took the liberty of preparing your remarks for tonight.' He was really weirded out and obviously didn't use the speech, but he did call up some of his friends at the White House. He called a guy named Michael McCurry, who was press secretary at the time. The Clinton administration had just gotten started a couple years back, and he said, 'Listen, if you're looking to hire somebody junior to come write speeches, this might be a good guy.' A year later, I got a call from the White House saying, 'Why don't you come on board and write speeches?' So had I not gotten started, had I not biked to offices of local congressmen and been kicked out, I wouldn't have gotten to that point. It was a lucky break, but it was my craft. Whether or not that would have happened, I can sincerely say that I would have enjoyed doing it. So that's a question I encourage you to ask yourself: if there is something out there that you love to do, whether or not you're getting recognition or getting paid, what would that be? I really encourage you to start focusing on that. When I called my mom that day after seventh grade class and asked her how I could become a speechwriter, she said to me, 'You don't have to wait.' And that is exactly what I say to you today. If there's something inside you, an idea, a vision, you don't have to wait for someday to do that. You should be able to do it now. Thanks so much.