Bill Aulet, MIT professor and author of Disciplined Entrepreneurship, lays out what separates entrepreneurs who build lasting companies from those who do not. Speaking as part of MIT's Substance Use Disorder Ventures Program, he draws on fifteen years of running MIT's entrepreneurship education and walks through the mindset, habits, and decision-making that distinguish founders who solve real problems from those chasing an idea for its own sake. He uses BioBot Analytics as a worked example of a startup that moved from concept to a sustainable business, tracing the choices behind its early traction. The talk covers how to validate a market need, why discipline and process matter more than raw inspiration, and what founders typically get wrong early on. Aimed at aspiring entrepreneurs, it functions as a condensed version of the thinking behind his broader curriculum rather than a pitch for any single venture.