CASE STUDY 6: International case studies: TRISTAN WALKER

TRISTAN WALKER is the founder of Walker & Company, which makes health and beauty products for people of color, and Code 2040, which fosters and supports minority engineering and tech talent. A former executive from Twitter and Foursquare, Walker pitched multiple ambitious, high-tech ideas to the venture capitalists at Andreessen Horowitz before discovering a relatively low-tech business that was in front of him all along: The Bevel line of shaving products.

On asked about the best advice he ever received he mentioned: Actor and producer Tyler Perry said he realized his potential as an entrepreneur after he figured out that the trials you go through and the blessings you receive in life are the exact same things. The trials you go through are blessings in disguise. It has given me a lot of peace.

About his opinions on difficult lessons he learnt on job he said: The importance of authenticity. After leaving Foursquare, I spent seven months as an entrepreneur-in-residence at Andreessen Horowitz. I wasted a lot of time in the beginning. I tried to think of the most ambitious thing I could do and pitched them on building a bank, tackling diabetes, even disrupting freight and trucking. Ben Horowitz was honest with me and told me I wasnt the best person in the world to solve those problems. In retrospect, I was trying to make other people happy versus pursuing things where I was an expert. I thought about doing hair products for women of color and talked myself out of it because I worried what people would think of me. Throughout my life I heard a lot of yeses, from getting accepted to boarding school to interning on Wall Street, then going to Stanford and working at Twitter and Foursquare. All of a sudden I was hearing, No. This isnt a good idea.

To build a great business he believes that, you need to pursue the idea for which you are the best person in the world to solve that problem. It can be freeing. Even though other people may not see it and may tell you that you are wrong, if you are connected to that thing and know you are right, you can succeed. If you are doing something different, someone else with that same idea but with more authenticity will crush you. Jonathan Ive from Apple said in an interview that customers can discern care for a product and they can also discern carelessness. When you are authentic, you care more and that comes through in the product and the brand in such a compelling way that customers will believe it.

On asking about one thing that enabled him to be a successful entrepreneur he said: I would not say I have been successful yet. We still have a lot of work to do. My brother taught me early on that you dont get what you dont ask for. I always go the extra step. If someone else asks once, I will ask six times until I get the thing I want. That has led to more opportunities as well as more innovation. One example is our logo. We have printed the Bevel logo on our razor heads. Its a curved metal piece inserted into another metal plate. When we were first designing it, manufacturers told me it was impossible. I flew to China to meet with our manufacturing team, and we sat together in a room for 24 hours until we came up with the most compelling compromise. It was just a matter of asking, Why not? enough times.

On coming up with best ideas he mentioned: I come up with a lot of ideas and 99% are crap. When I hire, I find people who are so good at what they do that they filter my ideas down to the good ones. Together we can get to a place that is reasonable and realistic but also pushes boundaries of innovation to not be safe.

He believes is greatest achievement to be not forgetting who I am and where I came from. Some people let success get to their heads. I have tried to stay true to the values and principles that are important to me: my faith, family, and work. Anything outside of that is a distraction that prevents me from doing what I want.

1. What is the best advice Tristan ever received? 2. What advice Tristan wants to give to other entrepreneurs? 3. How Tristan comes up with best ideas? 4. What is Tristans greatest achievement? 5. What was that one thing that enabled him to be a successful entrepreneur?