Stanford Entrepreneurship Videos

Jeff Hawkins, one of the founders of Handspring, claims to have witnessed teams of entrepreneurs brainstorming a product just for the sake of the sale, and he criticizes this approach. A good product can only be conjured by a genuine need in the marketplace. If there are no holes to fill, says Hawkins, then there is no point to being an entrepreneur.

Jeff Hawkins encourages students to do something they believe in. Business is hard and every company will have its trouble, the only way one gets through these times is if they you a cause and you believe in it. This passion gives momentum to see the bad times through. In his experience, people who started a company for the sake of starting a company failed when the hard times came upon them. At Palm the passion was the product, selling the company was not in contradiction with this passion, but allowed people at Palm to continue making good products. He says that it doesn't matter that the money isn't rolling in, but that we are all excited about what we are doing, and we think its great! This excitement carries companies and people through!

Jeff Hawkins, co-founder of Handspring, has never thought of himself as an entrepreneur.Being an entrepreneur is not a career choice, he says, but is something you do at certain points in your life because you have to. Hawkins believes entrepreneurship is a means to an end, as opposed to an end in itself.

Founder of the Palm Jeff Hawkins shares his story of graffiti, a handwriting recognition software, and the intuitive leap of using a keyboard to show that users can and will adopt to new technology. He elaborates on the role of market research, as well as how to listen to customers and follow your intuition and vision for the future.

Hawkins stresses that one must separate oneself from work. You are not your company, he says, you are not your product. Your company may fail, your product may fail, but not you, he adds. He stresses the importance of giving credit where it is due.

Hawkins talks about his life, his education and work experience. He started his career at Intel for 3 years and then moved to a start-up that he did not start. While working at the latter he created his first product - first pen-based computer. He soon realised that all personal computing ought to be smaller and simpler. With this thought he started on the path to try and accelerate this shift - and that was the genesis of Palm computing.

Hawkins discusses the balance between work and personal life. He mentions how different people will have differing balance cycles throughout various stages of their life. In this clip, Jeff shares a personal anecdote about balance in his own life.

Entrepreneurship is a means to an end, it is not an end in itself. The passion is with the product, Hawkins notes, and succesful entrepreneurs must follow it through.

Hawkins never really wanted to start a company, he admits. He considers himself an accidental entrepreneur who was approached by two venture capitalists while planning on building a small product.

Hawkins talks about basic corporate, structural, and employee issues that entrepreneurs often don't learn in class. For example, entrepreneurs should be well-versed in many areas, such as legal, financial, and human resources issues.

Hawkins shares his story about how his initial company was continually acquired by larger companies.

When starting a business one tends not to focus on employee issues. Hawkins stesses the importance of laying a strong foundation of human resources from the very beginning. He shares ideas that he feels make sound human resource policies. When you are thinking of compensation between people, he says, you should always imagine that everyone knows everything.

Hawkins shares the various reasons why he and his team finally spun off from 3Com to start Handspring. Although they were reluctant to leave and start a company from scratch, they felt that Palm did not belong in 3Com- a networking company. Palm was the only healthy division in 3Com and they could not continue growing and competing with a financial hand tied behind their backs.

Hawkins discusses how the cell phone took over mobile devices in the realm of personal computing. He projects where Handspring will go in the future with this transition.

I never had a technology company, says Hawkins. He believes that products come out of product marketing people who really love and understand products. He asks his employees to use competitor products to learn something from them. The focus should be on what people want and what they need, rather than only on technology.To build a successful product one has to innovate continuously, focusing on what people do and not what they say. And if you build a product, use the thing yourself.