Naveen Jain; How to Build a Billion Dollar Company

Have you ever fantasized about becoming a millionaire? How about a billionaire?

While many people believe this is only a dream, Naveen Jain thinks differently.

Naveen is a serial entrepreneur, billionaire, and philanthropist. He develops businesses that tackle some of the world’s biggest problems.

On our latest broadcast of The Art of Making Things Happen, Naveen shared his wisdom and insights.

Naveen explained the fascination with his meteorite collection. He also shared his passion for dreaming. And, he discussed his framework for building billion-dollar companies.

You don’t want to miss this episode of The Art of Making Things Happen with Steve Sims. 

The Billion-Dollar Question

Naveen’s goal has never been about becoming a millionaire or even a billionaire. It all starts with the desire to solve the world’s biggest problems. The money is a product of the service of helping people.

Someone once asked him how do you make a billion-dollar business. His answer was simple. “You solve a billion people’s problems.” It seems so strange to think of it in this way, but he’s right. Naveen has a framework he uses before creating a company. It involves asking three simple questions:

• Why this?
• Why now?
• Why me?

In the podcast, he explains how he used these three questions to start his company Viome. Viome is disrupting the way people approach chronic diseases.

Why This?

Naveen is a master of breaking down tough questions. That is because his approach is always solution-centered. His response to the “why this” question when it comes to creating Viome went like this:

• Will this idea help a billion people?
• Is it something he could commit ten years to solve?
• Will it move the needle? Would it do good for others?

Viome helps people prevent and reverse chronic diseases? From a global standpoint, solving this problem would help billions for sure. Would he be willing to commit ten years to it? The answer was yes. Last, would it move the needle? He believed it would.

Why Now?

When he examined the problem of chronic disease, he had to ask himself a few questions:

• What technological advances have happened in the past year?
• What technological advances do you expect to happen in the next three to five years?
• Will those technological advancements allow you to solve the problem today?

In answering these three questions, he knew Viome was a viable idea. He knew you had to be able to digitize the human body sequence.

At the time, it was already possible, yet expensive. Naveen predicted the price would come down to about $100 in three years. It went down to $10!

Naveen believed the cost for processing would come down thanks to cloud computing and AI. That led him to believe the time was right to solve this problem.  

Why Me?

Naveen explains that this is the most crucial part. He says it comes down to the question you are asking. He says it like this, “What question am I asking that’s different from everyone in the industry I’m about to enter?

In other words, what problem are you trying to solve that’s different from the industry? He states this is important because “The question you ask is the problem you solve.”

When he looked at the healthcare industry, they focused on DNA. Naveen believed this was wrong. The reason: DNA doesn’t change when you develop chronic diseases.

Instead, he focused on gene sequences because they are always changing. His research led to gut microbiomes. His goal was to match what microbiomes are producing to specific gene sequences.

A Billion-Dollar Company Is Born

Viome now takes customer samples to create personalized prebiotic and probiotic supplements. They tailor supplements to your unique gene sequences. They also provide a personalized food list to keep your gut health in check.

The results have been miraculous! Viome has reduced chronic diseases like diabetes, IBS, depression, and anxiety.

If you’re curious about how Viome can help you, please check out their website. Prices start as low as $199.

Looking for more great content? Want to hear Naveen’s episode? Please check out The Art of Making Things Happen with Steve Sims.