Get Over Imposter Syndrome and These 4 Other Hurdles of Being a New Entrepreneur With Help from Netflix's Co-Founder Netflix co-founder breaks down five questions that most new entrepreneurs have and what you need to ask yourself to jump through the first stages of creating your own business.

Recently, we sat down with Netflix co-founder Marc Randolph to answer some questions about imposter syndrome, cold-calling, and how to tell if your idea for a business is actually the right path for you.

If you are questioning your abilities, unsure if your idea will stick or just having a hard time defining what success looks like to you — then look no further. Here are five pieces of advice straight from Marc Randolph to help you make your business better.

1. How do you combine your passion with entrepreneurship and why is that so important?

Marc Randolph: Despite what you see in the movies and what you see on TV, there's a lot of grunt work that goes into this. There's a lot of disappointment. There's a lot of plugging away for days, weeks, and months without seeing a lot of progress. And you have to be motivated by something deeper than that.

And the most powerful motivation is this fascination with the subject. In other words, you consider yourself lucky. You get to spend every day dealing with this thing you are passionate about.

Netflix was project number six for me. And my passion was not necessarily the domain. I wasn't passionate about movies. I was totally normal movie watcher. No, my passion was entrepreneurship.

I love that process of solving really cool puzzles of always asking myself, why, why is it done that way? There must be a better way. So I was lucky that way, but your passion might be different.

Because all of a sudden, you take this thing you loved, and you recognize there's got to be a better way. There's this thing that I'm frustrated about; maybe I'm the person to solve it. You're lucky if it happens to you.

Related: Seek Progress, Not Perfection: Why Your Business Should Embrace the "Toothpick Rule"

2. What does success mean to you?

Marc Randolph: That's a complicated question. And I think it messes a lot of people up.

Entrepreneurship has been glorified — there are shows and movies about it. It gets a lot of press, and we see some heroes who found massive success, like Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos, and Elon Musk. And when we see people like that, it makes people think they're pursuing success when it's measured as economic success, they've made billions of dollars or its fame and success. The problem with measuring success that way is it's extremely unlikely.

The parallel I've often used when talking about this is like people who want to be actors or actresses. And if the reason that they want to do that is because they want to be successful, which means being famous and rich.

It happens to almost a tiny, tiny fraction of people. It's the same thing with entrepreneurship. So I've often said you need to define success differently. Again, you can't force it. For me, success was never that. For me, success was always defined as being able to do the things that you love doing and being good at them.

3. Did you ever get imposter syndrome? And if so, how did you overcome it?

Marc Randolph: The only way to overcome it is to recognize you're not the only person with it. It's pretty universal. I'll go out on a limb here and say I think there's something wrong with you if you don't have it.

If you think, "I've got this nailed, I am so qualified." You're missing something. We've all have flaws, and it's really healthy. It's good to question yourself, however, the one thing you can't do is let that concern stop you.

I do a lot of public speaking with pretty big audiences. And I'm pretty good at it, but every single time backstage, I'm scared. I'm nervous. I go, I'm going to forget something. I'm going to screw this up.

The other part of my head is saying, "Remember Mark, that as soon as you get out there, you won't be scared anymore." And that allows me to have the confidence. If I'm scared, I will do it anyway because I know I won't be scared when they start. And imposter syndrome is the same way you go. You need to force your way through it.

I think it's healthy to have a little bit of paranoia about your own abilities.

Related: Feel Like an Imposter? Practice These 5 Habits to Beat Your Imposter Syndrome

4. What are the top factors you should consider (apart from solving a real user problem) before starting a company?

Marc Randolph: Focus on solving a problem. You've got to solve a problem for a customer because otherwise, you fall into this terrible trap of becoming an idea in search of a problem rather than a problem in search of a solution.

Next, ask yourself if many people have that problem because that will help you decide how to scale. Does your idea have the potential that only a handful of people have? Then your idea might still be aspirational and need more thought.

Also, ask yourself, is your idea a good match for your abilities? And what it would take to solve this problem for this customer? So you might go, wow, it looks like there is room for an MRI machine, which costs about 25% of what the current ones do using a new technology. Sure, it's a great idea, a lot of people want it, and there's a big lucrative market for it. But do you know the first thing about what it would take to build a hardware product? It would take years just to built a beta version of it. So just make just your idea matches your abilities.

Next, ask yourself, does this interest you? Is this something you're willing to allocate a bunch of your life to? And are you willing to lock yourself into this?

Take the time to understand if the idea for a business is going to resonate with you long-term. If you have a cool idea for something that is entirely digital, which can be done with a website, well, you'll find out really quickly.

At Netflix, we knew it would be several years before we could even get a product in front of a customer. And do we have the patience, the time, and the economic appetite for that?

5. How would you suggest cold approaching somebody about your idea?

Marc Randolph: The most important thing to recognize about that is that you're not trying to get the investment when you do something like that. A great analogy is to pretend you are at a cocktail party.

You certainly are not trying to get someone to write you a check on the spot at a cocktail party, but that exact same principle applies to any way you're approaching someone. Your objective is not to get the investment with that first pitch.

It's to get them intrigued enough to say, "Oh, let's talk some more about that, or why don't you come stop by the office, or let's get on a call." Save your actual pitch for the elevator pitch later, not the cocktail party.

I had someone who did this on an actual elevator a while back. We were on an elevator (a slow one), and he said he wanted to run something by me. And it was purely designed to intrigue me or not. So that's what you do at a cocktail party: See someone who could help you think to yourself, "What can I say that will intrigue this person?" Make them believe that this is an interesting idea that has a reasonable size market. This might be the person who just might be able to solve that.

And then, if you're successful, they'll say, "I can't talk about it now. But let's talk later." And that's what you want to hear. That would be the ideal outcome when you cold approach someone. It's much better than asking for ten thousand dollars and a full commitment on the spot.

Watch More

If you want more on these questions, here is the full video available on Youtube.

Quotes from Marc Randolph have been edited for length and clarity.