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Chapter 1: Who is Serena Williams and what drives her success?
You may know who I'm sat with today. I just actually finished giving her a few tennis tips on the court behind us, and now we're going to chat a little about business and her career.
Glad to be here.
She's so strong. And she hits the ball so well with her ground stuff. And her hands are just unreal. The greatest of all time, Serena Williams. Serena Williams is a relentless, record-breaking, and iconic champion whose career reshaped the standards of greatness in global sports.
Today, she brings that same vision to business through Serena Ventures, building companies and investing in founders who are shaping the future.
The power of belief, we talked about it.
You said it's very important. Yeah, listen, belief is important. And I think believing in yourself is important. It's great for other people to believe in you and pat you on the back. But at the end of the day, in particular as an athlete, in particular as an athlete in a solo sport, you really need that self-belief. But where do you get it from?
How have you had to evolve as a leader as you've gone into the entrepreneur side?
I was able to evolve as a leader in tennis. It is a start. Yeah, yeah. You know, and as I started to build other companies, I understood leadership. Leadership is so important. Leaders lead.
If someone's listening now as a, you know, female, male, as a founder, do you have some tips on like getting, you know, you work with a lot of early stage, right?
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Chapter 2: How does self-belief influence performance in sports and business?
Glad to be here.
You know, greatest athlete of all time, I think, is a statement I've always said about you as one of the greatest athletes of all time. Whoa. OK. And I don't think I'm the first to say that, but you really are, you know, and you, you know, you and your sister, but you guys had the most amazing career. You inspired, you know, millions of people. Right.
And you just got such an epic story behind it all, too. And, you know, I've watched the movie many times because I grew up with a family of pro athletes. And I think I became successful because of my parents just taught me I could do whatever I wanted to do and believed in myself. And I see so much of that in you and your dad, too. Right. So I'd love to start there. Like the power of belief.
We talked about it. Yeah. You said it's very important. Can you?
Yeah, listen, belief is important.
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Chapter 3: What leadership lessons has Serena learned from her tennis career?
And I think believing in yourself is important. It's great for other people to believe in you and pat you on the back. But at the end of the day, in particular as an athlete, in particular as an athlete in a solo sport, you really need that self-belief. But where do you get it from? I say I got it from my dad and my mom, obviously.
My parents really instilled, you're good, you're going to be great, you're great, even down to having signs around and just positive affirmations telling us all the time how good we are.
Yeah, and there's one, you know, I don't know exactly how true to the core it is, but there's a moment in the movie, right, where, you know, right near the end, Will Smith, right, plays it, comes over and says, you're going to be the greatest of all time. Do you remember times where like, that's a bold statement to say to anyone as a kid, right? Do you remember being told that?
So we produced the movie, so everything, we wanted it to be very true. My sister actually said that. We thought it would be a better moment to have my dad say that in the movie. Obviously, Hollywood, but that's one of the few things that we changed, but that moment actually did happen, which is why the line even existed.
I was feeling rather down at the time because I felt like everyone was talking about Venus, and I'm like, hey, I played too.
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Chapter 4: What hiring strategies does Serena recommend for entrepreneurs?
I'm actually really good, and I think my sister saw that I was going through it at that moment. And she said these words that I will never forget, which is why I wanted it in the movie, which is why I wanted it in the script. I think she saw something in me that no one saw, not even my parents. And it was amazing that she saw it.
Talking about her briefly, you two are such a powerful tag team too, right? How fun. I just got to ask, how fun was it to be playing together, winning the doubles?
You know, I think out of my career, when I look back at some of the memories, my fondest memories are definitely on the doubles court. And it was mostly laughter. And I think it was fun because it was just a time where...
we did we ended up not even spending a ton of time together because we were both playing so much and always playing each other and you know what it was really the best times is winning gold medals with her or winning grand slams with her um it was great it was fun and what about the flip of that playing against each other yeah how was that
Yeah, you know, I'm very candid about how I feel about that. It was something I never really enjoyed playing against my sister. But it was also something that I knew was going to happen. Again, when I was younger, we always knew that we would play each other in the finals of Grand Slams. You know, we just never knew how hard it was going to be mentally, physically, emotionally.
But we always knew that at the end of the day, tennis would only last so long and we would be sisters forever. And so we wanted to make sure that we always had that bond.
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Chapter 5: How does risk-taking contribute to entrepreneurial success?
But, you know, it wasn't very easy playing her.
And talking about tennis only lasting so long, you know, now you're obviously focused on being a great mom and family, you know, part of the family and the venture side, right? Serena Ventures and the investments and you have a podcast now and, you know, a new show on Amazon. Can you talk a little about, you know, how you're doing all those things and what inspires you to do all of those things?
Yeah. So for me, when it comes to investing, Ventures is super important. And that's what I do every day is Ventures and Serena Ventures is a company that I built and we invest in. We invest in women. We invest in underrepresented founders and ideas and products that are helping underrepresented people. through technology, through fintech, AI, B2B, SaaS stuff.
And that's something that I've always enjoyed. But my biggest joy is definitely being a mom. I love being a mom. It's something that I truly love. And I try to think that is my number one job right now. And, you know, I just always want to just continue to build my team out to do their best job so I can be the best mom that I can be.
Well, I was going to ask you, you said that earlier, that's the leadership side, right? You know, I have about 140 employees and staff and it becomes a whole different ballgame from when you start with 5, 10, 20, right? So how have you had to evolve as a leader as you've gone into the entrepreneur side?
Yeah, no, I feel like I was able to evolve as a leader in tennis. Yeah. And when tennis first started, I wasn't a leader. My dad was on the team, then I had a coach. But then it became a team sport. It wasn't, even though it's a solo sport and it's one person out there, it became a completely team sport, whereas you needed a team.
And nowadays, I understand tennis players have at least 10 people on their team now. When I retired, it was like at least four, it was like five to six people. And now it's doubled. And leading that team really helped me as an entrepreneur and understanding like who to hire, how to hire, how to be and how to be. And of course, it's not 140 people, obviously, but it is a start. Yeah.
You know, and as I started to build other companies, I understood leadership. Leadership is so important. Leaders lead.
And I think it's so key for entrepreneurs because I actually, when I speak on stage, because I came from a family of athletes, I show a graph of a pro athlete and the eight or nine or 10 people around them. And then most entrepreneurs, it's just them. They try and build this company and it's just them.
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Chapter 6: What is the importance of investing in underrepresented founders?
It sucks. Firing sucks. Hiring sucks. Hiring and firing sucks. But you know what? That's one thing I've learned is like fire fast. If it's not working, it's not going to work next year. Next month is never going to work.
Well, and you said also, I laughed earlier because I teach my team all the time. You use this kiss in the frog analogy with business ideas. I use it with team members all the time. I'm like, a lot of entrepreneurs hire one person, doesn't work. And then they say, well, I'm not going to have that role anymore. I'm like, well, you wouldn't say that about dating.
You went on one date and then said I'm going to be single forever. Some people say that about dating.
yeah get it up you have to believe right and keep testing people yeah you have to believe you have to keep testing you have to keep high that's why i say hire slow but fire fast you know you take that dating for a long time but if it's not working out also don't feel guilty about it you know because it's nothing personal it could be someone that you really respect and i always say have that respect for people like i i always try to uplift people and always try to be positive and always try to help people
But that doesn't mean I don't like you. It just means it's not working out for this. It's absolutely nothing personal. And that's how you just have to think about it.
Yeah, I think that's great. It's like even dating you, not a fit for me, doesn't mean you're not a fit for someone else.
Yeah, it doesn't mean you're a bad person. For me, I'm always wishing people well, but it just means it didn't work out for us. And that's okay.
Love that. So next question I have is the mindset. I talked to you a bit earlier about like I see so many similarities because I came from a family of pro athletes. And now I last 10 years, all my friends are millionaires, ultra millionaires and billionaires. And there's so much overlap. Right.
And then even filming these segments like different pro athletes, different billionaires, lots of crossover.
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Chapter 7: How do athletic discipline and business acumen intersect?
Yeah, and I think that's what made you guys so great. Like, you always would have probably been great tennis players, but... You just take it to the next level. That made you, well, like, the most famous tennis players in history, basically, is that difference there, I think.
Yeah, I think my dad was really smart about it because... I think if we were basketball players, maybe he wouldn't have done that. Yeah, because it was OK. You can be a basketball player. It's probably we were taking a route that wasn't normal.
So I think he knew that he needed to give us more affirmation than normal because we were going to face things that no one literally at the time or still have ever faced. Yeah. So I think it was, you know, a lot of his genius behind that.
Love it. Good. So last closing comment, any tips for entrepreneurs or people trying to achieve a massive goal in life, whether it's business, sport?
Work hard. It's cliche. It's not going to happen overnight. And for every story that it does happen overnight, there's billions that it doesn't. So you have to work hard. You have to work hard. You can't expect someone to give you handouts or you can't expect it to just come.
And fail a lot. I hear that.
I hear that so much, but I don't even like the word fail. To me, that seems just try a lot. I like to say try a lot because it might not work out, but just keep trying. Don't stop trying.
Yeah, just lessons. They're lessons along the way.
Exactly.
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