Elon Musk on how to get people to believe in your startup

“If you think about a company, a company is a group of people that are organized to create a product or service. So in order to create such a thing, you have to convince others to join you in your effort.”

But, as Elon explains, this is hard in the beginning:

“In the beginning, there will be few people who believe in you or what you’re doing. But then over time — as you make progress — the evidence will build and more and more people will believe in what you’re doing.”

So, Elon argues, the first thing you should do when starting a company is create a good demo or mock-up so that people can really envision what it’s about.

“Try to get to that point as soon as possible, and then iterate to make it as real as possible, as fast as possible.”

A good example of this is the Tesla Roadster. Tesla debuted the concept vehicle in 2006 with a famous photograph of co-founder J. B. Straubel driving California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. Tesla was a long way from mass-producing the Roadster at any level of affordability, but the demo made their vision more real and helped Tesla secure additional funding. This funding bought the company more time and resources to deliver its first 500 vehicles between February 2008 and June 2009.

Full video: Computer History Museum “CHM Revolutionaries: An Evening with Elon Musk“ (Jan 2013)