Entrepreneurs who started businesses selling everything from robots to sports underwear encouraged a student-packed audience to take the plunge and let nothing slow down their dreams.
"It takes a ton of energy. You can't be down," said Sasha Novakovich (HBS MBA '99), co-founder and CEO of GetConnected, which provides software and services for selling broadband, wireless, and landline telephony.
Taking the plunge means feeling like the hard stuff is easy, or at least is going to get easier some day, according to the "Taking the Plunge" panel at the 2004 Entrepreneurship Conference at Harvard Business School.
The entrepreneurs said no roadblocks—competitive market struggles, even the threat of failure and bankruptcy—were enough to slow them down. Although luck and connections played a role in their successes, passion for an idea, flexibility, a desire to sell, and the ability to tell a compelling story to customers and investors were equally important.
While statistics warn that first-time entrepreneurial ventures often fail, there is power in being young and not yet hampered by a mortgage, family, and other life-altering responsibilities.
"You can always join the mainstream later. Go fulfill the idea you're most passionate about," said Helen Greiner, co-founder and president of iRobot, which makes robots for industrial, consumer, academic, and military markets.
| If you have no doubts, you are kidding yourself. |
| — Dallin Anderson, Montigen Pharmaceuticals |
Greiner said she wanted to make robots from the time she was eleven. Captivated by R2D2 in Star Wars, Greiner studied mechanical engineering and computer science at MIT, and co-founded iRobot at the age of twenty-three. Among its products are a robotic vacuum cleaner for the home called a Roomba, shaped like a discus, and the PackBot line for military use in field conditions. PackBot is a range of little robots that can do reconnaissance and handle hazardous materials, among other tasks too dangerous for soldiers.
"It's really important to be in a field that you really believe in," Greiner said. "I wake up and I get to do what I most want to do. My dream is to get robots into mainstream usage, and I get to live that every day."
She said the responsibility of the entrepreneur goes beyond getting a product out the door. "We've scaled up and now have 120 people working for us; those people are dependent on me for developing responsibility. There are thousands of people who build those robots over in the Far East, ... and all those folks are dependent on our business model and our driving the industry forward." Soldiers in Iraq depend on the robots in life-threatening situations, she said, a responsibility that she feels keenly.
The first few years of iRobot were stop and go, however, she said. And she couldn't recommend the company's method of getting underway without a business plan or product. Financing was conducted with credit cards. Luckily, the first clients, government agencies and universities, were "very forgiving" about glitches. Slowly, Greiner and team formed strategic partnerships and learned about low-cost manufacturing and consumer products.
"We didn't get money for eight years. We later raised $28 million," she said. Part of investors' willingness to commit funding may have been due to the fact that iRobot didn't burn through cash like many start-ups, she suggested. And investors were impressed that the company was prepared to fight on despite a lack of money.
From pharma to football
Panelists were asked by moderator Mike Roberts, a professor at Harvard Business School, how they calibrate risk and reward in such uncertain times.
"If you have no doubts, you are kidding yourself," said Dallin Anderson (HBS MBA '02), CEO of Montigen Pharmaceuticals. Aspiring entrepreneurs need to be comfortable with a certain amount of ambiguity, he said.
Nothing about starting a business is ever clear-cut, agreed Kevin Plank. Plank's business, Under Armour, a line of sweat-wicking underwear and other athletic garments worn by major league players, had similarly hardscrabble roots. Like all the best ideas, it developed to address a group that was underserved—in this case, sports players seemingly fated to constant t-shirt changes during games in order to stay dry and comfortable. Eight years ago, when he was a college football player, Plank knew too well that during games the typical kind of garment left him with "a wet, heavy, slowed-down, lethargic feeling."
"I was a short, slow football player, so I was motivated for a better product," Plank said.
He asked a local tailor to use a new fabric and draw up seven samples, which he distributed to his teammates. Encouraged, Plank headed to New York's garment district and ordered 500 more. Though teased by his friends for peddling "lingerie," the product gained popularity and has been sold to twelve NFL teams. Under Armour clocked $121 million in revenue last year, said Plank.
Entrepreneurs need to be prepared to "morph" their idea into something better rather than let it die, said Novakovich. That was a dilemma facing Nate Quigley (HBS MBA '00), of Eleven Technology, which makes products and services for workers without desks. The company started in June 2000 as a B2B for the food and beverage industry, offering mobile software for sales and delivery reps. Things did not go well at first, he now says.
"It's easy to confuse action with progress. The harder we worked, the more we lost. We faced a choice: go out of business or start over." They shrunk from a staff of fifty-five to eleven, and for the past two years have been on the right track with an expansion of the original vision, said Quigley.
Asked how to achieve a balanced perspective if you are a struggling entrepreneur while all your friends are finding success in conventional careers, panelists advised the audience not to feel discouraged. Everyone needs to define success individually, said Novakovich. At the very least, the experience of starting a business turns people into well-rounded managers who have demonstrated perseverance and a willingness to face risks.
"If you want to do something, sometimes you just have to," added Quigley. "There are lessons I've learned that I couldn't have learned any other way. If you want to start a business, you have to start a business." 