Harvard i-lab | Startup Secrets: Have You Got What It Takes?

First of all, it's a fun when we start the term and we get everybody in such good form as we have tonight. I've already had a a couple of really good questions to inspire me this evening. Uh so, we'll bring those into the agenda, but I also want to remind everybody that this is your series. So, it doesn't

matter what's on the slides, it does matter what's in your minds. And if you have questions that you want to bring out, that's the important thing. I will say that we specifically tonight, cuz I have such great guests, are going to include a fireside chat. I'm going to bring the logs myself. Uh where at the

end we'll get a chance to ask questions of uh our guests and encourage you to do the same. And I think this subject in particular is one which is personal. It's not one where the textbook is going to give you the answer. So, I want to encourage you to think about what are

the things that would uh you would like to learn from these founders, to get from their experience of what they've done. So, let me jump right in and tell you about tonight's agenda. First of all, the most frequently asked question that I get is what does it take to build a company, how do I start one,

or any variant of that. And it's really the billion-dollar question tonight with each of the founders you're going to talk to. They've each built billions of dollars worth of value. So, try to understand what it is from them is not an easy thing to do. But I also have some context I want to take you through.

Um not only do we have the background where uh obviously we've got a series of different workshops to go through, but also we've got a landscape where it's easier than ever to start companies. And so, this question might be one that gets ignored. But I want to talk through it, because many times entrepreneurs