Be it billions of dollars of fortune or a never giving up attitude – Elon Musk is the new inspiration. The South-African born self-made billionaire is re-imagining the world with his revolutionary and innovative game plan. He is arguably the most influential entrepreneur on earth. His huge successes and epic failures are best illustrated by his reckless experiments and audacious risks. He is revolutionising the way of living not only on earth but in space too! He is a man who has been identified as everything from a supervillain to a superhero. He is indeed iron man personified.
For those who aren’t clear on who Elon Musk is. He is the founder, CEO of an innovative company SpaceX, co-founder and CEO of Tesla Motors which is a company that produces electric cars. Also, he is the chairman of SolarCity and co-founder of Zip2 and PayPal. His main areas of focus include interplanetary space travel, clean transportation and sustainable energy. He is accountable for technology that could only be considered as science fiction a few years back.
Here are 9 takeaways from Musk and his spirit of entrepreneurship that we can follow.
Be Batshit Crazy
“(Elon Musk) is very much the person who, when someone says it’s impossible, shrugs and says, I can do it!”
-Max Levchin, PayPal Co-founder
Being batshit crazy means doing something that’s considered insane or impossible. The crazy ones see open highway where others see roadblocks. Musk and his entire SpaceX team are serious about colonizing Mars. On one hand his SpaceX team is progressing and in the years to come we may see a settlement on Mars on the other hand Tesla has come up with Powerwall home battery which has made great leaps in the field of renewable energy.
After conceptualising interplanetary transport and Hyperloop rail system, what’s next in line?
Invest In Yourself
“When something is important enough, you do it even if odds are not in your favour.”
-Elon Musk
Musk invested half of his earning from the sale of Zip2 roughly $10 million into PayPal. Again he invested more than half of his earning over $100 million from sale of PayPal into SpaceX. Was it risky? Yes, indeed. He believes in himself that he can turn some insane ideas into reality and hence he is ready to invest any amount in himself. Thus we can see he makes prudent investment in his own passionate products.
Not everyone has millions of dollars to invest but we can surely invest our cent percent effort and time into a project we are passionate about.
Seize An Exit Plan
“Don’t be afraid of new arenas.”
-Elon Musk
Musk is the living example of a serial entrepreneur. He knows exactly when it is time to let go. At the age of 28 he founded a web software company, Zip2 which marketed an ‘Internet city’ guide for newspaper publishing which later was sold to Compaq and Musk acquired $22 million which he invested in PayPal which was sold to ebay. Had he still be running Zip2 or PayPal he would be rich and successful but would he have electric sports cars under his name? The lesson to be learnt is when you start any business have an end plan in your mind.
Look for Emerging Fields
Musk started Zip2 in 1995 and PayPal in 1999 when the emerging field was Internet and both these companies succeeded thanks to establishing it on the ground floor of the blooming Internet.
Next in 2001 Musk conceptualised “Mars Oasis” in an attempt to regain public interest in space exploration. In 2002 he founded SpaceX. His revolutionary ideas and perfect launch timing have made his companies a huge success. They have low competition and hence higher growth potential.
Don’t Grow Too Fast!
“I think you definitely don’t want to grow too fast. Make sure that every person you hire you really need to hire that person.”
-Elon Musk
He is very particular when it comes to hiring. He says “I have an exceptionally high standard for people that get hired, especially for SpaceX. We really aspire to hire quite literally the best people in the world at their job.” This is one process which you should devote time to. Rushing while hiring people could result in a matter of huge discomfort. Entrepreneurs take note of this – for your venture to expand offer jobs carefully and only to people you can work with in the near future.
Make failure An Option
“Failure is an option here. If things are not failing you are not innovating enough.”
-Elon Musk
We don’t apply to our dream job or start a company because we are afraid we will fail or lose our money. Great business decisions are almost always risky. Especially when you are working on Internet (in 1995), solar panels, electric cars and interplanetary exploration failure is quite a viable option. While Musk never planned on falling he always had a contingency plan. For SpaceX his plan was “If we don’t get the first SpaceX rocket launch to succeed by the time we’ve spent $100 million, we will stop the company. That will be enough for three attempted launches.” Thereby he made failure ‘an option’.
Stay Ambitious
“The first step is to establish that something is possible; then probability will occur.”
-Elon Musk
The hardest part of any journey is the first step. Musk is obsessively trying to make electric cars the standard automobile of the future. Particularly Tesla is expected to generate its profit almost after two decades (that is in 2020) from when it was founded. Yet he is motivated to make electric cars as the new future. This shows pure ambition.
Work For A Purpose Bigger Than Yourself
Many of us aim to find a secure job with a good pay and benefits that make us happy. Do we barely care about what impact are we making on the world? Colonizing Mars is about the future of human species, it’s not about a business deal.
“I think it’s important that humanity became a multi-planet species. I think most people would agree that a future where we are space-faring civilization is inspiring and exciting compared with one where we are forever confined to earth until some eventful extinction event. That’s really why I started SpaceX.”
-Elon Musk
When he left PayPal he asked himself, “Well what are some of the problems that are likely to affect the future of humanity?”
He works for the whole world and aims at solving problems bigger than himself.
Do Charity
Musk has decided to donate a large part of his personal fortune to Warren Buffett’s Giving Pledge. Musk also said this regarding Tesla, “anyone who, in good faith, wants to use our technology” is free to do so and Tesla will not file patent lawsuits against them. This is his way of showing that he wants technological enhancement in the field of electric cars rather than making money and other petty issues. This is his way of giving back to science.
