Lessons from the Inventor of GoPro

A masters in business from an Ivy League school is a great way to get started on the entrepreneurial path.

So is surfing.

At least according to Nick Woodman, inventor of the GoPro, who rocketed from surf bum to billionaire status after this nifty gadget took hold in the market.

Woodman did not attend an Ivy League and wasn’t even a very good student. But he did have one major thing going for him: passion.

It was his passion for surfing that led Woodman to invent the GoPro — a camera he could strap on his body to film his surfing exploits. Turns out that a lot of people have a similar passion to share first-person videos of their adventures.

There’s certainly more to this story, of course. GoPro wasn’t Nick’s first stab at being an entrepreneur. He failed at several other startups before he invented the GoPro. And GoPro has lost a lot of its value in recent years after a series of botched product releases. But the message is crystal clear, and it’s one I’ve heard repeated again and again in business. To be successful, you simply have to be passionate.

That doesn’t mean you have to invent the next GoPro. But figure out what drives you — and what you want to spend all day, every day thinking about.