Episode 2: Luck

Is it true that there’s a use case for inferior products? Glenn shares a sticky story about chance favoring a prepared inventor. Meanwhile, luck of another kind turns out to be more rewarding than a Harvard education for one of the world’s most savvy business persons.

Transcript

Glenn Suart 0:00

So I was lucky in that sense. If I just said, oh, I had an idea, you know, and I wasn’t in that initial meeting, that meeting might not have gone very well. But I had thought it through and I was ready when when luck happened, there I was.

Doug Ross 0:25

Welcome to Conversations on Startups, a podcast brought to you by Douglas Ross, author of the book Spark Click Go: How to Bring Your Creative Business Idea to Life, and Glenn Suart of Today’s Great Idea, a radio series featuring over 300 origin stories of businesses, brands and inventions that have changed the culture. Welcome to today’s conversation.

Glenn Suart 0:49

This week, we’re talking about luck. And, what luck has to do with it? Because I find that a lot of people sometimes think that, Oh, if I was only as lucky as so and so I’d be a billionaire now, or I would have had this business or that it’s just because I don’t have any luck.

Doug Ross 1:09

Well, you know, it’s funny. What do you mean, when you say luck? Are you talking about the kind of lottery luck? Are you talking about, serendipity, maybe a chance meeting? Are you talking about right place, right time? What do we mean, when we talk about luck in the context of entrepreneurship.

Glenn Suart 1:27

Obviously a good question. Yeah, I take it right off the top as I was thinking more about the serendipity luck of being in the right place at the right time. And, the question is, for sure, that happens, people do in the lottery, but not everyone does. And so how do you make yourself lucky? That’s what I think is the thing because a lot of these great businesses that are created – ‘ll tell the story in a few minutes here – were about people being in the right place at the right time, but they made their luck happen. That’s the key thing. Because, you can’t count on things just happening out of the blue, you have to make things happen. So that’s what I’m thinking about. What do you think when you think luck?

Doug Ross 2:04

Well, I like that part. You have to make things happen. When I was thinking about luck in this context, I realized that that is a lot of what we call luck in this context, I think as well, that what is luck for the person experiencing it, versus what luck is for the person viewing it from the outside, are two very different things. We perceive a lot of these people as lucky – maybe we see something that happened to them kind of late, that was lucky, and we didn’t see everything that was happening before that led them up to being in that right place at the right time.

Glenn Suart 2:40

Exactly. Well, let me tell a story about these two guys, and I, of course, last week, we joked that you didn’t remember the names of the people. I occurs to me now that I don’t remember the names of these two guys. So here’ the story. This one guy works at 3M in Minnesota, and he invents this glue. And the glue is interesting because the glue doesn’t stick to anything. And he thinks there’s some value to it, but nobody else at 3M does. So he just hangs out, and he, you know, he keeps in his back pocket that he has this glue. And everywhere he goes across the campus, whenever he’s doing a presentation, he sort of says, Hey, by the way, I’ve got this glue that doesn’t really stick to anything does anybody have an idea for it? And he continues to talk about it for a long time. On the other side of the campus guy doesn’t know him is another guy at 3M who is very involved with his Church, he has this book of songs, but of course, all these paper things in his book fall out. And so he hears about this glue, and the two of them match up. But they think well, maybe there’s something there and they put some glue on paper and they find some yellow paper outside in the hallway and guess what they created Doug?

Doug Ross 3:58

Sticky Notes, PostIt notes?

Glenn Suart 4:00

Post it notes. One of the greatest successful products of the 20th century. All it was, like we talked about persistence last week, this is persistence because the first guy was basically making sure that everybody knew he had this invention but didn’t know what to do with it. And the second guy figured out, oh, I could use that. I mean, you may try this. And so, it was lucky that in that sense, they manufacture the luck to be in the right place at the right time.

Doug Ross 4:30

And the two met, the one with the need and the one with this kind of glue that didn’t stick.

Glenn Suart 4:35

Exactly. So it worked out really really well for them, of course it for 3M but it wasn’t a ,you know, a hit off the bat. Management at 3M was not impressed. They weren’t sure this was going to work, so they actually went to a small town, I think in Minnesota, and they basically gave away post it notes to everybody in town for free. Everybody said Well, thanks very much. I want to I want more of these now where do I get them? And that’s when 3M knew they had something. Luck is about being in the right time in the right place, but keeping things moving. You never know when something’s going to happen. So that’s that’s the kind of story I like about luck.

Din 5:14

You’re listening to conversations on startups with Doug and Glenn, thanks for joining us. Let’s get back to the show.

Glenn Suart 5:23

Do you have any stories that jump out to you that are relevant?

Doug Ross 5:26

I do have one or two in mind, Glenn. But just to comment on something interesting in that particular telling is that here’s a guy who invents a glue or comes across a glue somehow that doesn’t stick. And instead of saying, Oh, my gosh, how is this going to do anything, it should be better than the previous form of glue, it should be stickier. But instead of that he asked around, Who might be able to use this less sticky glue? The reason that I like to highlight that is because it led to this chance meeting and this use case that turned out to be a huge business for 3M. But without him asking that question, and without him making connections with people, even seemingly randomly here, the quote unquote, luck, wouldn’t have happened. Yep. So I like that element of the story and how you tied that back to persistence. You know, I can think of several stories here, maybe not as in depth, but, one of them would be the Airbnb, folks. They happen to meet an investor. So it’s Paul Graham is the investor. Paul Graham happened to go to the same school that they went to, you know, different year, all of that – Rhode Island School of Design. I’m sure that would have predisposed him to listening to this crazy pitch, Hey, I think we should create a platform where people can rent out their apartments to other people. And we’re calling it Air Bed and Breakfast at the time. So that’s a little story about luck, backgrounds, just nothing happening to connect. Here’s another one. Would you think it lucky to get refused to Harvard?

Glenn Suart 7:10

Well, most people was saying they want to get to Harvard, but sometimes when a door closes, a window opens.

Doug Ross 7:16

Yeah. And this is the story of Warren Buffett. He counts his being born in the United States, being born in a century where he could use his capital allocation skills as opposed to when only physical skills would have been necessary, earlier in history, was rejected from Harvard, which led him to go to Columbia, I believe it was and then studying under Professor [Benjamin Graham, father of Value Investing] there that really twigged him on to value investing that he really made a lot out of. And so he counts some of those things as being lucky.

Glenn Suart 7:52

You know, like, you’re surrounded by luck every day, I guess, at the end of the day. So, you can’t think of, sure we all wanted to be there with some guys invented Google. But you have to make your luck. And make the best of what happens to you every day. And reach out to people and try stuff. And, you know, failure, as we all we all know, is not something people like, but it’s actually, you know, the more you fail, the more chance you have to succeed in the long run.

Doug Ross 8:24

You’re gonna have more at bats, if that’s the case and try different things.

Glenn Suart 8:28

Yeah, like I thinkg about luck, I think, actually, but how I created this with Today’s Great Idea radio series. I had the idea and you know, based on Paul Harvey, and what he’d done with the rest of the story, and I had a little bit of a radio background, and I thought about it and I thought, How am I going to pitch this to a radio station or you know, what’s going to happen? Didn’t do anything with it for two years. And then one day I was in the client location the same time that a radio executive was in there pitching some advertising. And I took him aside and said, you know, Kim, what do you think about this for an idea? She said, Well, that sounds like a great idea. Why don’t no pun intended, interesting choice of words, of course. And so she introduced me this to the radio station manager, and I had my little pitch deck together. And he said, Great, let’s try it. And I thought, Oh, my, it’s gonna be hard to do. He said, he wants 65 episodes and I’m going, Oh, I had about five in hand, and, you know, I thought there’s no way 65 is going to be possible. But I said, Yes, of course. And today we’re at 320. All great stories about great people just taking action, doing something with their ideas. But I think back to luck being in the right place at the right time, and being willing to, you know, I saw a radio person who was going to a salesperson, perfect! If that hadn’t happened, we might not be having this conversation today. It’s that simple.

Doug Ross 9:55

But let’s unpack that a little bit. It sounds like you had at least this semblance of an idea. Going into this, you had thought about that you – I’m not sure if you had a goa – but you’d had done a little bit of legwork on this, you were kind of looking for something. It wasn’t just blindly out there hoping, hoping luck would arrive.

Glenn Suart 10:16

Right. I prepared myself for an opportunity when it presented itself, but I was I was specific about it. So I was lucky in that sense. If I just said, oh, I had an idea, you know, and I wasn’t in that initial meeting, that meeting might not have gone very well. But I had thought it through and I was ready when when luck happened, there I was. So, it doesn’t always work, but the more you think about, the more you do.

Doug Ross 10:46

Hey podcast listeners, we’re going to take a short break now. If you’re enjoying the show, feel free to invite your friends. Remember to subscribe. And if you want to help spread the word, leave us a review on Apple podcasts or your favorite podcast app. Each episode of conversations on startups focuses on a single topic. If you want to comment on something you’ve heard on the podcast or suggest a topic for us to cover in a future episode, send an email to go@todaysgreatidea.com or douglas@sparkclick go.com. Glenn and I appreciate you and hope you find our uncut and unrehearsed stories, perspectives and tips helpful. Speaking of helpful stuff, let’s pick up where we left off.

Glenn Suart 11:32

I guess the question is how do we encourage people to feel lucky

Doug Ross 11:36

To feel lucky? Well, you know, to feel lucky, that’s a good question. To me, it’s a question of attitude, looking for the positive in things that occur. If I go back to that story from Warren Buffett, he somehow I’m sure he didn’t really feel good at the beginning, but, he took something out of that and made something out of it – he looked for the positive in that, in that case, it was a rejection. So I think to feel more lucky, it’s… mental approach to it. You know, one of the exercises that I do, I wish I could say I do this daily Glenn, I don’t, my wife is better doing this, but I do it occasionally, and I think back on my day. And what I try and do is look for the kernals. When I do that, sometimes I say Oh, wow, I had that chance meeting, for example, with so and so in the coffee shop, and I remember her saying this and geez, I wonder what she really meant, you know, and I might think about that. And I might take away that as a nugget from the day. So that’s one way I make myself feel a little bit more lucky- is reflecting on the good things that happened in a given day. What about you?

Glenn Suart 12:49

Very much the same thing. I’m generally a glass is half full. And I also I like to think of myself as being thankful. And, in the sense that I look at the good things that I have my life: family, opportunity, health. And I don’t focus on the things that are negative and – not to ignore them – but I focus on the strengths as it were, and that helps when you focus on being lucky. So I think that’s what you have to do. You just have to be persistent. You have to be ready. And luck will happen. And I think everybody has luck at some point.

Doug Ross 13:28

Because there’s a lot more than I think people give themselves credit for. They’re a little bit too externally focused, seeing other people’s good success as luck and not really reflecting on – like you say – the strengths that they have, or the things that they have.

Bridget 13:47

You’re listening to conversations on startups with Doug and Glenn. Thanks for joining us. Let’s get back to the show.

Doug Ross 13:55

I use this phrase in my SPARK CLICK GO book, the adventurers mindset. And, if you think about climbing a mountain …let’s say you’re climbing a mountain. You start off with a rope, you’ve got your cleats, you’ve got your axe, whatever you might need, your crampons, everything else, your supplies of food, and as things go, you might lose some of those things or they might break. And so, if up against those sorts of challenges, if you focus on what you do not have that is not going to put you in the right mindset to get to the top of the mountain, which is your goal. So the opposite, focusing on, as you say your strengths, or what you do have, I think is really critical in terms of forming that, that mindset. I think there’s a couple other things we can do. All of us can do to make more luck. So I would say setting a goal is certainly one of them. If you’ve got a goal that’s going to happen. I think if you connect the dots between things that you’re learning or picking up during the day, again, that reflection on those things, I think If that can make for more luck. And being prepared. You said, when you met up with that radio executive that you had already a pitch deck in your back pocket or on your computer, what have you. So you were prepared. I think those sorts of things are very practical.

Glenn Suart 15:16

Yep. 100%. Well, good discussion about luck. What do you want to talk about next week,

Doug Ross 15:22

Kind of connected to not unlike luck was connected to persistence, talking about what to do if you have an idea but you don’t have any money. So you’ve got a business idea, you don’t have any money, you’re wondering, can you pursue this idea, how to pursue that idea, how do I do anything without money?

Glenn Suart 15:45

Yep. It’s a really good question. I get it all the time, I get people like, Well, I’ll just take an idea and I’ll license it to somebody, well, that’s not gonna work because, you know, too often, you just, nobody wants to license an idea that hasn’t been developed yet. And so, you got to do some investment. But people don’t have the cash in a lot of cases to make this work, or they haven’t, they don’t have enough cash as it were. So, at some point you got to think about how to get money to do something. With the cooler company that myself and a partner started in Canada, the partner had some money, a little bit of money, but not a huge amount – not nearly enough to do it well. But what he had was the sales skills. And so we started the company and we made sure that the offering was really good and we approached a major national retailer in Canada, not directly, we went to their dealers – which is sort of like franchises. And the dealers have a choice about making stuff. Well Sean walked in, and two hours later from one of the 500 stores and the dealer gave him a purchase order, which is great. And then he went up the valley and he did some more, he got some more purchase orders. Then by having those purchase orders in hand, we were able to find an investor on the terms that we wanted to help us finance what we needed. Nice. So we leveraged purchase orders to get there. So that’s just a summary of one technique amongst many to help you take an idea and do something with

Doug Ross 17:20

Oh, I like that. Yeah, that’s really practical and shows customer interest.

Conversations on Startups is a production of Glenn Suart and Douglas Ross, we hope you’re having fun listening, but mostly that you take action on your business idea. For more inspiration, visit our websites todaygreatidea.com and sparkclickgo.com. Another episode of Conversations on Startups will drop soon or is already available to binge. Thanks for joining us and remember to subscribe and invite your friends. See you next time.

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