Passion Drives Persistence and Success

What advice do you have for entrepreneurs who are facing tough going trying to convince people to fund them, to buy into their vision?

Yeah, I mean I think the first thing I think of is you have to be so passionate about what your building. And now that I sit on the investor side, when I meet founders everyday, I really want to know what is there life story that brought them there to that moment, and why are they a purpose-built for that particular opportunity? For me, I was out of dog food one night, but it was really driven by my passion around emerging technologies: social, location and mobile. And I saw the opportunity, even before Lyft, even before Uber, when people thought it was insane to jump into a stranger's car, that there was going to be an opportunity to connect people in real time around services.

And so that was my driving passion. It was about the technology. And then it really became about changing the way people were working, and the shift in the labor force. And it's so hard every step of the way to raise money, and to hire people, and to build a team and to inspire. And you're going to hit roadbocks all the time, but as long as you're really passionate about what you're doing, you're just going to keep at it. And I think that perseverance and that persistence is one of the most important qualities an entrepreneur can have.