"I believe that the startup organization is one of the greatest forms to make the world a better place. If you take a group of people with the right equity incentives and organize them in a startup, you can unlock human potential in a way never before possible. You get them to achieve unbelievable things."

"Everybody has a plan until he gets punched in the face."

Airbnb f.e. was passed on by many smart investors because they thought: "No one's going to rent out a space in their home to a stranger."This company came out right during the height of the recession when people really needed extra money.That compensated the rejection to host strangers in exchange of a necessary money hence why it succeeded.Other examples of right timing can be Uber & YouTube.

Airbnb

After analyzing 100 IdeaLab companies and 100 Non IdeaLab companies which succeeded and failed he concluded:<ul><li>Timing accounted for 42% of the difference between success and failure.</li><li>Team/Execution in 32%.</li><li>Idea "Truth" Outlier in 28%.</li><li>Business Model in 24%.</li><li>Funding in 14%.</li></ul>

Top 5 Factors in Success Across More than 200 Companies

<ul><li>Ideas: it's the core concept, he used to think it was everything.</li><li>Team: execution, adaptability, ability to get punched in the face by customers.</li><li>Business Model: having a clear path to generating customer revenues.</li><li>Funding: receiving intense amount of funding.</li><li>Timing: is it way too early? Does the world need to get educated? Is the world ready for it? Is the right timing? Is it too late? Are there too many competitors?</li></ul>

5 Essential Elements that Lead to Success

"Execution matters a lot, but timing might even more."

Bill has been in businesses since 12 when selling candies in junior high school at the bus stop, from creating solar energy devices in high school, to college when he made loudspeakers. And when he graduated from college he started software companies.In 1996, he founded IdeaLab, a technology incubator which has founded more than 150 companies over the last 26 years.Bill, in an aim of understanding which factors determine the success or failure of a startup, tells us 5 essential elements that lead to success.

What Factors Matter Most for Company Success?

Get to know what Bill Gross discovered on success by analizing over 200 startups.

Bill Gross has founded a lot of start-ups, and incubated many others -- and he got curious about why some succeeded and others failed. So he gathered data from hundreds of companies, his own and other people's, and ranked each company on five key factors. He found one factor that stands out from the others -- and surprised even him.