Bill Aulet

An idea is necessary to catalyze a team into action, but much more important is executing effectively on a viable idea that will evolve over time. This is all much easier and more likely to happen with a disciplined process and a strong team.

often loses to others in the end. Another former colleague, Professor Matt Marx, now chair and faculty director of entrepreneurship at Cornell University, showed in his research that successful companies start with an idea and then focus on a customer and do a process called “switchbacks”4 until they figure out what works. Netflix co‐founder Marc Randolph describes in his brilliant book That Will Never Work how every original idea is flawed and it is only through iteration that it becomes viable

They have to “love the game,” as my colleague Nagarjuna Venna describes it. Once you have that spirit and understanding, the rest of it—entrepreneurship skills and way of operating—can be taught. It requires the four Hs, as we talk about at MIT: the heart (spirit/mindset), the head (knowledge/theory), the hands (practice/capability), and the home (community‐based way of operating to be able to utilize resources beyond your control).7 While it all starts with a mindset (heart), it must be complemented with the other three Hs as well.