Stanford Entrepreneurship Videos

In conversation with renowned venture capitalist Tim Draper, SolarCity Co-Founder and CEO Lyndon Rive describes how the next stage of growth is in providing infrastructure to utilities. He explains that policies which currently prevent power providers from profiting on such services would fuel innovation across the industry if those laws were less restrictive.

"It's all about simplicity," says Tilt Co-Founder and CEO James Beshara. "If you're going to build your own business, try to find simplifiers, not complicators." He describes how he learned this lesson through his first startup, dvelo.org, a site for crowdfunding loans and donations to aid organizations in developing countries.

Entrepreneur James Beshara discusses how a habit of decisiveness is more important to a venture than any one decision, and how the success of any technology company is judged by its trends over time, not by individual metrics or an initial spike in popularity.

James Beshara, CEO and co-founder of mobile-crowdfunding platform Tilt, breathes new life into tired cliches, explaining the insights and inspiration they hold for entrepreneurs. Beshara, who has pushed the crowdfunding envelope since 2007, shares his belief in the power of the collective and seeing beyond individual data points to understand larger trends in behavior and business.

Tilt Co-Founder and CEO James Beshara recalls the moment when, on the heels of his first startup's demise, he realized crowdfunding's potential to pool people's support for worthy causes. He says he also saw an opportunity after seeing how poorly crowdfunding websites looked on mobile devices.

James Beshara, co-founder and CEO of Tilt, recounts meeting his fellow founder, Khaled Hussein, and the initial doubts he voiced about the frivolous uses of the mobile-friendly crowdfunding platform. Beshara explains how the everyday usefulness of the app serves as the gateway for people to crowdfund more meaningful projects as they gain savvy.

James Beshara, co-founder and CEO of Tilt, uses the metaphor of bricks and mortar to illustrate the relationship between the individual and the team, strategy versus culture, and results versus process. "The difference between bricks and mortar is ... a single finger can push over a stack bricks," Beshara says. "The mortar can help it withstand a hurricane."

Jeff Seibert describes Twitter's approach to surveying new business landscapes and potential acquisitions. To ensure a good fit, Seibert says the process begins with meeting a startup's founders, then its lead engineers, followed by interviews with each member of the team – all the while, looking for cultural alignment, strong technology and a great team.

Speaking from experience as the co-founder of two startups acquired by larger tech companies, and now as Twitter's senior director of product, Jeff Seibert underscores the importance of entrepreneurs looking beyond the day the deal closes and understanding how their startup fits into the long-term strategy of the company acquiring them. "An acquisition is not the path to your vacation," Seibert says. "It is the opposite."

Jeff Seibert, senior director of product at Twitter, describes what went well and what didn't during the acquisition of his earlier startups by big-name technology companies, stressing the importance of culture fit, maintaining your team's trust throughout, and continued investment in growth after being acquired. Seibert also explains how an acquisition isn't always the best exit strategy for a promising startup.

Jeff Seibert, Twitter's senior director of product, discusses how entrepreneurs shouldn't see an acquisition as the finish line, but as the beginning of the next stage in the journey toward realizing the vision of their startup. "There are many great companies in the valley," Seibert says. "But the one that's right for you is the one that you deeply identify with on a cultural level."

Jeff Seibert, senior director of product at Twitter, describes how several companies made offers to acquire the technology behind his first startup, a file-conversion engine. Faced with multiple offers, Seibert explains how culture fit and the chance to continue working on the product was more important in the decision-making process than how much money was offered.

Jeff Seibert, reflecting on the acquisition of his first startup by the content-management platform Box, shares lessons learned from the experience: First, save more time for negotiating better terms. Second, leaders must protect their team from the stress of uncertainty. Third, insisting on continued investment in the startup after acquisition can benefit both parties down the road.

Jeff Seibert explains the initial doubts about Twitter's offer to acquire his second startup, which delivered crash-analysis reports to mobile-app developers. Despite its rapid growth and potential, Seibert says an acquisition made sense because of exact alignment between his team's vision and that of Twitter, where he now serves as senior director of product.

In addition to exact strategic alignment, Jeff Seibert says Twitter's acquisition of his startup Crashlytics went well because of credible funding alternatives, complete control of messaging on all sides of negotiations, and keeping the rest of the team unaware until the deal closed. "The key there," Seibert says, "is you have to live up to your team's trust."