Speaker 1: These sees Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and Tim
Speaker 1: Stentovic on Bloomberg Radio. The companies that we talked about
Speaker 1: each and every day, you know, they begin as ideas,
Speaker 1: maybe in a garage and Silicon Valley, or perhaps in
Speaker 1: a rented office space in Alburquerque. But from that idea
Speaker 1: to an actual functioning business can be a rocky road. Tim, Yeah,
Speaker 1: you got a big investors for money. You've got to
Speaker 1: manage growing workforce, youve got to figure out how to scale,
Speaker 1: and ultimately, if you're lucky, you'll get to a successful exit,
Speaker 1: whether it's an I p O or an acquisition. But
Speaker 1: it is a tough slog. If only there were a
Speaker 1: handbook for entrepreneurs, there actually are. Next guest says he
Speaker 1: has written one, Ory Levine, he knows a thing or
Speaker 1: two about building a company. Co founder of Ways, which,
Speaker 1: as you know, sold to Google for one and one
Speaker 1: point fifteen billion back in he was an investor and
Speaker 1: move It, which Intel bought for one billion back in. Tim,
Speaker 1: He's got a brand new book out. It's called fall
Speaker 1: in Love with the Problem, Not the Solution, a handbook
Speaker 1: for entrepreneurs. He joins us on the phone, from New
Speaker 1: York City? Or how are you good? Good to have
Speaker 1: you with us, Thank you, I'm excellent in yourself, We're
Speaker 1: doing well. Thanks, We're very pleased. Congratulations on the book
Speaker 1: as well. Or right, um, I'm wondering about, you know,
Speaker 1: starting starting this idea in terms of, like, you know,
Speaker 1: thinking about not just this handbook, but about your own
Speaker 1: journey as an entrepreneur. What does it mean to to
Speaker 1: fall in love with a problem. So essentially, you know,
Speaker 1: when you fall in love with the problem, the problem
Speaker 1: remains your north star of your journey, right, And when
Speaker 1: you have a north start and at the end stay,
Speaker 1: you're less likely to do deviations from it and more
Speaker 1: likely to actually get to your destination. But there is
Speaker 1: another major part of it, right, because the story that
Speaker 1: you're going to tell when it's associated with the problem
Speaker 1: is way better than the story that's associated with the solution.
Speaker 1: If we will be hearing too souven and seven, I
Speaker 1: will tell you that I'm going to build an ai
Speaker 1: A scroutsource navigation system. Then you would say, yeah, right,
Speaker 1: but you don't really care, well what was the problem.
Speaker 1: What was the problem though, that you were trying to
Speaker 1: solve In two thousand seven. I'm going to help people
Speaker 1: avoid traffic gims. All right, that's it worked, and then
Speaker 1: you do care, you know, every time, and I am
Speaker 1: an all in fan on it, and you know, um,
Speaker 1: I will say, my husband's like kind of laughs at
Speaker 1: me because when it's like there's a car on the road,
Speaker 1: I'm like, I hit it and I you know, could
Speaker 1: you read it? You've got in the world to buy
Speaker 1: in and help you in this process process. Is there
Speaker 1: something that in society um or that you think though
Speaker 1: has changed. We talked so much about the sharing economy,
Speaker 1: the sharing society. Is there something different that enabled ways
Speaker 1: to be created that could have been created maybe years
Speaker 1: ago beyond the technology component of it. You know, I
Speaker 1: think that in general people are um like to help
Speaker 1: each other, right, and so we are. In general people
Speaker 1: are good and if you create them the opportunity, then
Speaker 1: they will be happy to share. They will behaving to
Speaker 1: great value for others. And the magic of ways is
Speaker 1: that we the drivers are helping the rest of the
Speaker 1: drivers to avoid traffic chams and to know what's going
Speaker 1: on on the road. And essentially it's sort of a
Speaker 1: social network of drivers that we are helping the rest
Speaker 1: of the drivers. What's a problem in today's world that
Speaker 1: needs to be solved. Besides that, my puppy needs to
Speaker 1: be trained. I wish there's probably an app for that.
Speaker 1: At the end of the day, there are a lot
Speaker 1: of problems, right because when we think of different issues.
Speaker 1: And by the way, when we started ways, you know,
Speaker 1: traffic jams today are more severe than they were when
Speaker 1: we started ways and we actually were scheduled or we
Speaker 1: our mission was to help drivers to avoid traffic chams
Speaker 1: and traffic chers. They are even more severe, right, and
Speaker 1: so we are done. We are not done with's addressing
Speaker 1: mobility um and movies actually did a better job in
Speaker 1: addressing mobility by making public transportation easier. Um, but we're
Speaker 1: still not done. And you know, one of my startups
Speaker 1: is trying to address parking because it's some major issues.
Speaker 1: And many of my startups, which one of them, is
Speaker 1: trying to address a different problem. I am curious how
Speaker 1: you look at some of the companies that were once
Speaker 1: startups but are now behemous in the technology space but
Speaker 1: are having a tough time a K, Facebook, now Meta, Tesla, Twitter, Like,
Speaker 1: how do you look at them? Because just because your
Speaker 1: startup in it, and people can be excited and you
Speaker 1: can do well for a while. It doesn't necessarily mean
Speaker 1: you have legs. But how do you look at some
Speaker 1: of these companies somebody who's created companies and companies with legs.
Speaker 1: So so let me ask you the following, right, and
Speaker 1: and this is really how fast it war you're changing, Right,
Speaker 1: Google and Amazon and Netflix are about twenty something years old, right,
Speaker 1: and then Testla and Facebook and in Twitter and high
Speaker 1: Airbnb are less than twenty years old. They were amazing
Speaker 1: entrepreneurs at the beginning that had a mission to change
Speaker 1: the world, and in their journey they have made the
Speaker 1: world a way better place. Right, Just imagine that we
Speaker 1: will have a time machine and I will send you
Speaker 1: back fifteen years into two thousands and seven and two
Speaker 1: thousand nine, right just before we started with And that
Speaker 1: means that I'm going to take away your iPhone and
Speaker 1: Ways and Uber and Netflix and and pretty much everything
Speaker 1: that you're using every day. It's unclear that we will survive.
Speaker 1: So when we create a solution to a real problem,
Speaker 1: it's guaranteed that we are creating value. And when we
Speaker 1: create value, we are likely to become successful. Now, whether
Speaker 1: or not we are looking at the valuations that were
Speaker 1: here in the last couple of years, or the valuations
Speaker 1: to a it doesn't really make the difference in the
Speaker 1: value that those companies have created and in the goodness
Speaker 1: that they have created. You know, there was the saying
Speaker 1: that companies oftentimes, like in you know, before the pandemic,
Speaker 1: you'd see startups get ridiculous funding rounds and they were
Speaker 1: in search of a problem to solve. What's what's one
Speaker 1: company that you saw a startup that you saw that
Speaker 1: you passed funding on because you said, wait a second,
Speaker 1: this is not they're solving a problem. So so most
Speaker 1: of my startups are actually self made. Right, so I
Speaker 1: was looking at the specific problem and then find the
Speaker 1: right team or or maybe the team came to be
Speaker 1: very early phased right the way before they even started,
Speaker 1: which a problem that they would like to solve, and
Speaker 1: I basically say, this is a problem worth solving. And
Speaker 1: so my recommendation will be a think of a problem
Speaker 1: that is worth solving, a big problem. I think that
Speaker 1: the world will become a better place if you addressed that,
Speaker 1: and then ask yourself, who has this problem? Now? If
Speaker 1: you happen to be the only person on the planet
Speaker 1: this problem. Then I would say, you know what, go
Speaker 1: to a shrink. It's gonna be a page, cheaper and
Speaker 1: faster than building a startup. But if a lot of
Speaker 1: people actually have this problem, then what you really want
Speaker 1: to do next is go and speak with those people
Speaker 1: can understand their perception of the problem, and only then
Speaker 1: go and build a solution. Now, if if you follow
Speaker 1: this past and your solution works right, it's actually guaranteed
Speaker 1: that you are creating value. Well, in the essence of
Speaker 1: all of all startups is to figure out what is
Speaker 1: the value that we are creating? Got it? Or we
Speaker 1: have to leave it there? Or Elevening, co founder of Ways,
Speaker 1: his new book fall in Love with the Problem, Not
Speaker 1: the Solution, a handbook for entrepreneur something he knows a
Speaker 1: lot about. This is Bloomberg