Speeches
“How Great Leaders Inspire Action” by Simon Sinek
In this TEDTalk by Simon Sinek he uses an idea he calls “The Golden Circle” to examine certain patterns that seemingly predict the success rates of various leaders, leading to one common thread every great leader and innovator in history has shared. Starting with examples from Martin Luther King’s leadership in the Civil Rights Movement to Apple’s leadership in the business world, Sinek believes that it’s not the product, service, or plan that’s most important – it’s why you, as the entrepreneur, think the product, service, or plan is important.
“The Single Biggest Reason Why Startups Succeed” by Bill Gross
As a serial entrepreneur and a mentor for other startups, Bill Gross has seen great businesses fail and questionable businesses succeed, and this experience drove him to quantify exactly why these differences exist. He evaluated hundreds of companies through factors such as: idea, timing, team, access to capital and overall business model. What he found was that one factor led to success more than any other – and that’s timing, accounting for most i.e. 42 percent of the difference between success and failure.
“Pitching to VCs” with David S. Rose
In this TED talk, serial entrepreneur turned investor, David Rose, gives a very detailed and precise video about the do’s and don’ts for your pitch presentation. He talks about the number one most important thing in a VC pitch amongst all elements, the 10 characteristics you have to convey during a pitch and which is most important, and critical things you should never say in your pitch, all under 15 minutes, for free.
“Be an Opportunity Maker” by Kare Anderson
Kare Anderson has a message every entrepreneur needs to hear: make opportunities, don’t wait for them. She puts forward the idea that given each one of us in the room is the best at one thing, if we worked together on shared interests and brought out each other’s best talent we can ‘accomplish greater things together than we could on our own’. Kare believes that, if we want a more meaningful life that’s more adventurous, we should embrace the opportunity to bring the right people together to support an action that matters to them.