full transcript

From the Ted Talk by John Mullins: 6 tips on being a successful entrepreneur

Unscramble the Blue Letters


That principle has carried Tesla all the way through its journey. So when they idnocutred the Model 3, several years ago, nearly half a million consumers put down deposits of 1,000 dollars each. Do that math. Half a mioilln consumers, 1,000 dollars each -- half a billion dollars, in the bank, in cash, with which to begin doing the engineering, build the tooling, fit out the factory and more. Wouldn't you like to build your etenpeueriarnrl venture with that kind of business model?

OK, the next one. I call it “beg, borrow, but please, please don’t steal.” In B-school finance, we teach our setutdns how to analyze whether a project's any good. So you figure out how much ievnmesntt you have to do, and then, you fgruie out what the cash flow is going to be, going forward, year after year, for five years, 10 years or whatever. And then, you ask yourself, "Well, is that return on that investment sufficient?" And if the ROI is good enough, then you do the project. That's the idea. But for Tristram Mayhew, and Rebecca Mayhew, his wife, who built a wonderful business in the UK, called Go Ape, a treetop adventure business, they didn't think that way at all. They said, "We want to build a treetop adventure bsuienss, here in the UK." They'd seen one in France, that they liked, on a vacation. "So where can we get some teres?" Well ... Who's got trees in the UK? It turns out the UK Forestry Commission has trees in the UK, lots of them, in all these frrsoety Commission sites, and the Forestry Commission was very interested in icsnreinag their vistoir cnout. Well, what better way to increase their visitor count than to have a Go Ape treetop adventure course on their land? So what Tris and Becs essentially did was go to the Forestry Commission and say, "Look, if you'll give us a chance to biuld five of these and show you that it works, we'd like an exclusive for the rest of them, for 25 years." The deal was done. Today, there are more than 30 Go Ape adventure sites across the UK, there are a whole bunch of them in the US, and how did that happen? Because they borrowed most of the asests they needed. They bweorrod the trees, they borrowed the loos, they borrowed the pnakrig lots, all that stuff. All they had to do was put their kit on the trees. prttey cool.

Open Cloze


That principle has carried Tesla all the way through its journey. So when they __________ the Model 3, several years ago, nearly half a million consumers put down deposits of 1,000 dollars each. Do that math. Half a _______ consumers, 1,000 dollars each -- half a billion dollars, in the bank, in cash, with which to begin doing the engineering, build the tooling, fit out the factory and more. Wouldn't you like to build your _______________ venture with that kind of business model?

OK, the next one. I call it “beg, borrow, but please, please don’t steal.” In B-school finance, we teach our ________ how to analyze whether a project's any good. So you figure out how much __________ you have to do, and then, you ______ out what the cash flow is going to be, going forward, year after year, for five years, 10 years or whatever. And then, you ask yourself, "Well, is that return on that investment sufficient?" And if the ROI is good enough, then you do the project. That's the idea. But for Tristram Mayhew, and Rebecca Mayhew, his wife, who built a wonderful business in the UK, called Go Ape, a treetop adventure business, they didn't think that way at all. They said, "We want to build a treetop adventure ________, here in the UK." They'd seen one in France, that they liked, on a vacation. "So where can we get some _____?" Well ... Who's got trees in the UK? It turns out the UK Forestry Commission has trees in the UK, lots of them, in all these ________ Commission sites, and the Forestry Commission was very interested in __________ their _______ _____. Well, what better way to increase their visitor count than to have a Go Ape treetop adventure course on their land? So what Tris and Becs essentially did was go to the Forestry Commission and say, "Look, if you'll give us a chance to _____ five of these and show you that it works, we'd like an exclusive for the rest of them, for 25 years." The deal was done. Today, there are more than 30 Go Ape adventure sites across the UK, there are a whole bunch of them in the US, and how did that happen? Because they borrowed most of the ______ they needed. They ________ the trees, they borrowed the loos, they borrowed the _______ lots, all that stuff. All they had to do was put their kit on the trees. ______ cool.

Solution


  1. figure
  2. parking
  3. count
  4. introduced
  5. million
  6. borrowed
  7. build
  8. visitor
  9. trees
  10. students
  11. increasing
  12. pretty
  13. assets
  14. forestry
  15. entrepreneurial
  16. business
  17. investment

Original Text


That principle has carried Tesla all the way through its journey. So when they introduced the Model 3, several years ago, nearly half a million consumers put down deposits of 1,000 dollars each. Do that math. Half a million consumers, 1,000 dollars each -- half a billion dollars, in the bank, in cash, with which to begin doing the engineering, build the tooling, fit out the factory and more. Wouldn't you like to build your entrepreneurial venture with that kind of business model?

OK, the next one. I call it “beg, borrow, but please, please don’t steal.” In B-school finance, we teach our students how to analyze whether a project's any good. So you figure out how much investment you have to do, and then, you figure out what the cash flow is going to be, going forward, year after year, for five years, 10 years or whatever. And then, you ask yourself, "Well, is that return on that investment sufficient?" And if the ROI is good enough, then you do the project. That's the idea. But for Tristram Mayhew, and Rebecca Mayhew, his wife, who built a wonderful business in the UK, called Go Ape, a treetop adventure business, they didn't think that way at all. They said, "We want to build a treetop adventure business, here in the UK." They'd seen one in France, that they liked, on a vacation. "So where can we get some trees?" Well ... Who's got trees in the UK? It turns out the UK Forestry Commission has trees in the UK, lots of them, in all these Forestry Commission sites, and the Forestry Commission was very interested in increasing their visitor count. Well, what better way to increase their visitor count than to have a Go Ape treetop adventure course on their land? So what Tris and Becs essentially did was go to the Forestry Commission and say, "Look, if you'll give us a chance to build five of these and show you that it works, we'd like an exclusive for the rest of them, for 25 years." The deal was done. Today, there are more than 30 Go Ape adventure sites across the UK, there are a whole bunch of them in the US, and how did that happen? Because they borrowed most of the assets they needed. They borrowed the trees, they borrowed the loos, they borrowed the parking lots, all that stuff. All they had to do was put their kit on the trees. Pretty cool.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
forestry commission 4
big companies 3
treetop adventure 3
question number 3
companies today 2
wonderful business 2
surgical forceps 2
plastic surgeon 2
target market 2
narrow target 2
big company 2
shin splints 2
entrepreneurial venture 2
visitor count 2

ngrams of length 3

collocation frequency
big companies today 2

Important Words


  1. adventure
  2. analyze
  3. ape
  4. assets
  5. bank
  6. becs
  7. billion
  8. borrow
  9. borrowed
  10. build
  11. built
  12. bunch
  13. business
  14. call
  15. called
  16. carried
  17. cash
  18. chance
  19. commission
  20. consumers
  21. cool
  22. count
  23. deal
  24. deposits
  25. dollars
  26. engineering
  27. entrepreneurial
  28. essentially
  29. exclusive
  30. factory
  31. figure
  32. finance
  33. fit
  34. flow
  35. forestry
  36. france
  37. give
  38. good
  39. happen
  40. idea
  41. increase
  42. increasing
  43. interested
  44. introduced
  45. investment
  46. journey
  47. kind
  48. kit
  49. land
  50. loos
  51. lots
  52. math
  53. mayhew
  54. million
  55. model
  56. needed
  57. parking
  58. pretty
  59. principle
  60. project
  61. put
  62. rebecca
  63. rest
  64. return
  65. roi
  66. show
  67. sites
  68. steal
  69. students
  70. stuff
  71. sufficient
  72. teach
  73. tesla
  74. today
  75. tooling
  76. trees
  77. treetop
  78. tris
  79. tristram
  80. turns
  81. uk
  82. vacation
  83. venture
  84. visitor
  85. wife
  86. wonderful
  87. works
  88. year
  89. years