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2 episodes with noam wasserman
2 episodes with noam wasserman
Alisa Cohn is an executive coach who has worked with C-suite executives at startups like Venmo, Etsy, Wirecutter, and DraftKings, and Fortune 500 companies like Microsoft, Google, Pfizer, Dell, and IBM. Inc. Magazine named Alisa one of the top 100 leadership speakers, and she was named one of the Top 50 coaches in the world by Thinkers50 and the #1 startup coach for the past four years by Global Gurus. She is also the author of From Start-Up to Grown-Up, which won the 2022 Independent Press Award and the American Book Fest 2023 Best Book Award for Entrepreneurship, and is the creator and host of a podcast of the same name. In our conversation, we discuss:• The psychology behind why we avoid difficult conversations• Specific scripts for having five common difficult conversations• How to handle defensive reactions in the moment• The three questions you should end every meeting with• “The founder prenup” that every founding team should work through• Common leadership myths• Stories of failure from Alisa's career—Brought to you by:• Eppo—Run reliable, impactful experiments• Rippling—Automate HR, IT, and finance so you can scale faster• Liveblocks—Ready-made collaborative features to drop into your product—Find the transcript at: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/scripts-for-difficult-conversations-alisa-cohn—Where to find Alisa Cohn:• X: https://x.com/AlisaCohn• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alisacohn• Website: https://www.alisacohn.com• Podcast: https://www.alisacohn.com/podcast—Where to find Lenny:• Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com• X: https://twitter.com/lennysan• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/—In this episode, we cover:(00:00) Alisa's background(04:48) Having difficult conversations(12:48) Scripts for performance feedback(20:20) How to respond when someone is defensive or upset(25:07) Scripts for handling promotion disappointments(31:00) Scripts for handling terminations(35:44) The importance of positive feedback(38:49) Understanding your job as a leader(44:55) Recognizing your own blind spots(49:38) Three vital questions to ask in every meeting(55:57) The founder prenup(01:08:24) Failure corner(01:13:00) Final thoughts and lightning round—Referenced:• Alisa's free PDF downloads for Lenny's listeners: https://www.alisacohn.com/Lenny/• Radical Candor: From theory to practice with author Kim Scott: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/radical-candor-from-theory-to-practice• Non-Violent Communication (NVC) Model: https://www.ucop.edu/ombuds/_files/nvc-model-requesting-change-remove.pdf• Sheryl Sandberg on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sheryl-sandberg-5126652• How embracing emotions will accelerate your career | Joe Hudson (executive coach, Art of Accomplishment): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/embracing-your-emotions-joe-hudson• Joe Gebbia on X: https://x.com/jgebbia• Noam Wasserman on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/noam-wasserman-462425• Core Values List: https://jamesclear.com/core-values• How Cofounders Can Prevent Their Relationship from Derailing: https://hbr.org/2022/04/how-cofounders-can-prevent-their-relationship-from-derailing• Inside Out 2 on Disney+: https://www.disneyplus.com/movies/inside-out-2/6MeZYf9JkFii• Ninja CREAMi: https://www.amazon.com/Ninja-NC299AMZ-Milkshakes-One-Touch-Container/dp/B09QV24FFZ• Joseph Campbell quote: https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/136819-if-the-path-before-you-is-clear-you-re-probably-on—Recommended books:• From Start-Up to Grown-Up: Grow Your Leadership to Grow Your Business: https://www.amazon.com/Start-Up-Grown-Up-Grow-Leadership-Business/dp/1398601403• Radical Candor: Be a Kick-Ass Boss Without Losing Your Humanity: https://www.amazon.com/Radical-Candor-Revised-Kick-Ass-Humanity/dp/1250235375• Working Backwards: Insights, Stories, and Secrets from Inside Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Working-Backwards-Insights-Stories-Secrets/dp/1250267595• Unpacking Amazon's unique ways of working | Bill Carr (author of Working Backwards): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/unpacking-amazons-unique-ways-of• Walt Disney: The Triumph of the American Imagination: https://www.amazon.com/Walt-Disney-Triumph-American-Imagination/dp/0679757473—Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com.—Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed. Get full access to Lenny's Newsletter at www.lennysnewsletter.com/subscribe
Welcome back to another edition of ScaleUp Radio, the podcast inspired by the Entrepreneurial ScaleUp System and designed to make navigating our ScaleUp journeys that little bit easier by learning from others' experiences. I'm Kevin Brent and today we delve into the remarkable journey of Kate Bright, founder of Umbra International, a pioneering company providing holistic secure lifestyle services for high-net-worth individuals. From its inception in 2015, Umbra has achieved steady growth by addressing physical, digital, reputational, and emotional risks for its clientele. Today, Kate shares her unconventional path to success, the challenges of scaling a values-driven company, and her leadership evolution in creating an inspiring work environment. She also offers invaluable tips for managing stress and maintaining resilience in high-stakes situations. Make sure you don't miss any future episodes by subscribing to ScaleUp Radio wherever you like to listen to your podcasts. Join us for a fascinating conversation filled with insights on entrepreneurship, growth, and the art of secure living. Scaling up your business isn't easy, and can be a little daunting. Let ScaleUp Radio make it a little easier for you. With guests who have been where you are now, and can offer their thoughts and advice on several aspects of business. ScaleUp Radio is the business podcast you've been waiting for. If you would like to be a guest on ScaleUp Radio, please click here: https://bizsmarts.co.uk/scaleupradio/apply You can get in touch with Kevin here: kevin@biz-smart.co.uk Kevin's Latest Book Is Available! Drawing on BizSmart's own research and experiences of working with hundreds of owner-managers, Kevin Brent explores the key reasons why most organisations do not scale and how the challenges change as they reach different milestones on the ScaleUp Journey. He then details a practical step by step guide to successfully navigate between the milestones in the form of ESUS - a proven system for entrepreneurs to scale up. More on the Book HERE - https://www.esusgroup.co.uk/ Kate can be found here: linkedin.com/in/katevbright https://umbrainternational.com/ Resources: The Founders Dilemma by Noam Wasserman - https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/the-founder-s-dilemmas-anticipating-and-avoiding-the-pitfalls-that-can-sink-a-startup-noam-wasserman/2507857?ean=9780691158303 Let It Go by Dame Stephanie Shirley - https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/let-it-go-my-extraordinary-story-from-refugee-to-entrepreneur-to-philanthropist-ch-shirley-dame-stephanie/742661?ean=9780241395493 Calm app - https://www.calm.com/ Breathly app - https://breathly.app/ Aura app - https://www.aurahealth.io/
Noam Wasserman is the Dean of Sy Syms School of Business at Yeshiva University, and used to teach at Harvard Business School. He wrote two bestselling business books, the Founders Dillemas and Life is a Startup. Topics Sy Syms VS. HBS Personal Journey Talmud Torah Business and Values Am Yisrael You can follow Dean Wasserman on LinkedIn Please join the Shtark Tank Quiet Whatsapp Group for exclusive bonus content! If you have any sort of feedback, or just want to say hey, don't hesitate! You can reach me by email and LinkedIn
In this episode of Ventures, I (https://linkedin.com/in/wclittle) compare ChatGPT, Bard, HuggingChat, and BingChat regarding their recommendations for startup books and front-end code for a standard startup landing page. I compare the user experience of each LLM, the limitations of each for these use cases, and show how ChatGPT and Bard seem to be current leaders in these examples.Visit https://satchel.works/@wclittle/ventures-episode-149 for more information. You can watch this episode via video here. 0:03 - Tee-up for the episode, talking about the 4 LLMs I'll be comparing, and where to find the audio/video of this episode. 1:14 - Talking about startup books, starting with ChatGPT's list: "The Lean Startup" by Eric Ries"Zero to One" by Peter Thiel and Blake Masters"The Startup Owner's Manual" by Steve Blank and Bob Dorf"Founders at Work" by Jessica Livingston"The Hard Thing About Hard Things" by Ben Horowitz"Venture Deals" by Brad Feld and Jason Mendelson"Disciplined Entrepreneurship" by Bill Aule"Crossing the Chasm" by Geoffrey A. Moore2:47 - Talking about Google Bard's list: The Lean Startup by Eric RiesZero to One by Peter ThielThe Hard Thing About Hard Things by Ben HorowitzThe Mom Test by Rob FitzpatrickThe Startup Owner's Manual by Steve BlankThe $100 Startup by Chris GuillebeauFounders at Work by Jessica LivingstonLost and Founder by Rand FishkinThe Innovator's Dilemma by Clayton ChristensenThe Art of Startup Fundraising by Steve Blank and Bob Dorf3:25 - HuggingChat's “list” - which was just The Lean Startup4:12 - Bing Chat's list: Lost and Founder by Rand Fishkin, The Startup Checklist by David S. Rose, and The Lean Startup by Eric Ries1. Other books recommended for startup founders include The Founder's Dilemmas by Noam Wasserman, Secrets of Sand Hill Road by Scott Kupor, and Zero to One by Peter Thiel and Blake Masters1. According to Benzinga, the best startup books for beginners are “Zero to One,” “Creativity Inc.” and “The Lean Startup”1. “The Startup Owner's Manual” by Steve Blank is also recommended as one of the best startup books2. Other books that are recommended for business startup include “The War of Art” by Steven Pressfield, “The 4-Hour Workweek” by Tim Ferris, and “Purple Cow” by Seth Godin1.6:06 - Diving into front-end code with the 4 LLMs, including asking it for the CSS for the recommended HTML code that Bard and ChatGPT put out (HuggingChat and Bing weren't able to generate code for me).
This episode is brought to you by The Profit Line. The Profit Line is a boutique finance and accounting firm that provides a wide range of accounting services to small and medium businesses generating anywhere between $5M to $50M in revenue. On a fractional, outsourced basis, they do day-to-day bookkeeping, bank reconciliations, month-end accruals, tax compliance, and financial statement preparation, among countless other things. I was a customer of theirs for 7 consecutive years while running my own company, and am speaking as a happy customer. Book a call with Founder and CEO, Fern Gordon (Ferngordon@theprofitline.com) or visit their LinkedIn page to learn how they might be able to help you exactly as they helped me. * This episode is brought to you by Avidbank. Avidbank is one of the most experienced search fund lenders in North America, having funded over 40 separate transactions since 2014, for a total of over $300M. They are deeply familiar with the search fund model, and understand the nuances of the fundraising process, dealing with sellers, communicating with your equity investors, LOI reviews, and everything else in between. Reach out to Anthony Rodriguez (arodriguez@avidbank.com) or Conor Tidgwell (ctidgwell@avidbank.com) to learn more. * My guest today is Dr. Noam Wasserman, recognized as one of the world's foremost experts in how to form and maintain high performing partnerships in entrepreneurial contexts. Dr. Wasserman is currently the Dean of the Sy Syms School of Business at Yeshiva University in New York City, and was previously a professor at Harvard Business School for 13 years. His now famous book, The Founder's Dilemmas, quickly became an Amazon #1 bestseller, and has since won countless awards. In our conversation today, we discuss what to consider when seeking out a partner, the important conversations that prospective partners ought to have with each other, what role passion and persistence should play in the entrepreneurial journey, and how to apply his various concepts and frameworks to our personal lives.
Dr. Noam Wasserman relates the lessons we learn from entrepreneurial co-founders about relationships, roles, communication, criticism, and decision-making.Hosted by Rabbi Shmuel Ismach
Normally on Startups For Good, we interview external guests. Today, we turn the mic back around and focus on Purpose Built and what we're up to. Recently, we did a webinar called “Ready to Build. How do I know if I'm ready to be a startup founder?” Have you had a nagging feeling that you'd one day like to start a company or have people told you they want to work with you or for you? Perhaps you're in a moment of a career transition where you're exploring your next steps, you could consider yourself a future founder. But how do you know if you're ready? And what are the things you should consider?I'm CEO and co-founder of Purpose Built, joined by Reini Chipman, Head of Human Capital in the webinar, and we talked about what makes a great startup founder, what common misconceptions there are and when to know you're ready. Part of what was fun for me is being able to incorporate some of the previous episodes that we've done, Episode 86 with Noam Wasserman, author of The Founders Dilemma. We referenced Alex Lazarow, author of Out-Innovate episode 20 and Ali Tamaseb, author of Super Founders episode 64. Check out that one as well. If you want to learn more about purpose built there's our website. And you can also listen to the Access Ventures Podcast that I was interviewed for their More Than Profit December 8 episode. Taylor's HBR article about MVPs is online here.Today on Startups for Good we cover:What makes a great startupMyths about VC backed foundersCareer GoalsKnowing when you are readyFirst steps to starting a businessThe value of a startup studioThe process that Purpose Built Founders go throughSubscribe, Rate & Share Your Favorite Episodes!Thanks for tuning into today's episode of Startups For Good with your host, Miles Lasater. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and leave a rating and review on your favorite podcast listening app.Don't forget to visit our website, connect with Miles on Twitter or
In this episode, we speak to Noam Wasserman, who shares his Desert Island Torah. Noam takes us through some famous sugyot in shas and incorporates an array of inspirational and meaningful life messages and connections to the field of business.
We cover it all with Dr. Wasserman who became dean of Sy Syms in 2019. Prior to that, he was a longtime professor of entrepreneurship at Harvard Business School and a chaired professor and founding director of the Founder Central initiative at the University of Southern California. We discuss his best-selling book and podcast, The Founder's Dilemmas, grounded in rigorous research on how to avoid the typical startup pitfalls. Co-hosted by Dean Dr. Noam Wasserman (Yeshiva University's Sy Syms School of Business) and Charlie Harary (entrepreneur, CEO, professor and radio host).
Noam Wasserman is the dean of Yeshiva University's Sy Syms School of Business. Before becoming dean in mid-2019, he was a professor of entrepreneurship at Harvard Business School and a chaired professor and founding director of a center at the University of Southern California. Wasserman has also written two bestselling books: The Founder's Dilemmas and Life Is a Startup. The Future of Jewish is a podcast hosted by Joshua Hoffman, the founder of JOOL. In each episode, Joshua is joined by top leaders, thinkers, and doers who are paving the path for a promising Jewish future.
You know a guest is legit when he has his own Wikipedia page.Introducing Noam Wasserman, Dean of Yeshiva University's business school and a genius when it comes to starting a business. As an author, Dean Wasserman has studied and written about the challenges faced by founders of startup companies, so if you're looking to start or run a business, tune into this insightful episode. Sponsored by TYHnation.com, where a grateful life is a great full life!The Founder's Dilemmas - https://amzn.to/3AEaydlThe Lean Startup - https://amzn.to/3AHQZRFVenture Deals - https://amzn.to/3lF5mBRBecoming a Manager - https://amzn.to/3mUpjEgSituational Leadership - (Google for Copies, Kind Listener)Managers & The Legal Environment: Strategies for Business - https://amzn.to/2YTNyKHDownload Living Smarter Jewish's FREE budgeting sheet hereTo see more podcasts brought to you by Living Lchaim visit LivingLchaim.comSubscribe to our YouTube channel here:https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJHk7NZyFnyphA_jfdK5rvA See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
On this episode of Link Up Leaders, Francois and Lisa sit down with Carlos Alvarez, the original Wizard of eCommerce to learn more about his experience on Amazon, and how he's helping other eCommerce business owners to scale their businesses.
Advised to slow down, Noam Wasserman recognized that it's more important to do things right than fast. This guidance contributed to academic achievements and to success in business. Author of 2 books, Wasserman is dean at Yeshiva University.
Study Guide Pesachim 39 Today’s Daf is sponsored by Marsha Wasserman in honor of her son Dr. Noam Wasserman, Dean of Sy Syms School of Business at YU. "Thank you for encouraging me to study daf yomi as you have been doing for many years. I am fortunate to have you as a son who motivates and encourages not only his own students but also his parents. We love you and are very proud of all of your accomplishments." And by Erin Piateski in honor of the 14th yahrzeit of Dr. Beth Samuels a"h. "Beth's life was dedicated to Torah learning, and in particular, to expanding Jewish learning opportunities for girls and women. Beth would have been thrilled to see the large community of women learning daf yomi." Today’s Daf is sponsored in honor of the 14th yahrzeit of Dr. Beth Samuels a"h on December 30th, 15 Tevet. Beth's life was dedicated to Torah learning, and in particular, to expanding Jewish learning opportunities for girls and women. Beth would have been thrilled to see the large community of women learning daf yomi. And by Debbie Gevir in the memory of her mother, Yocheved Gindsberg on her sixth yahrzeit today. Besides being a model of hesed, kibud horim, and grace, Yocheved was active in torah learning and teaching, especially for women. יהי זכרה ברוך What can one use to fulfill one's obligation for marror? What are all the different types of vegetables mentioned in the mishna? Other sources are brought which list other types. Is there one type more ideal than the others? Can things other than vegetables be used that are bitter? The gemara continually compares matza to marror to derive various criteria. Rav says that all the types that can be used for marror can be planted together in one area. The gemara tries to understand what was he trying to say. One can eat marror moist or dry - is this just for the stalk or also the leaves? What about shriveled? Pickled? Cooked? Stewed? Can you use maaser sheni produce? How would this differ from the same question regarding matza from maaser sheni? What types of things can be done with bran that would or would not lead to leavening? If the food is already baked, it can no longer leaven, even if placed in water.
Study Guide Pesachim 39 Today’s Daf is sponsored by Marsha Wasserman in honor of her son Dr. Noam Wasserman, Dean of Sy Syms School of Business at YU. "Thank you for encouraging me to study daf yomi as you have been doing for many years. I am fortunate to have you as a son who motivates and encourages not only his own students but also his parents. We love you and are very proud of all of your accomplishments." And by Erin Piateski in honor of the 14th yahrzeit of Dr. Beth Samuels a"h. "Beth's life was dedicated to Torah learning, and in particular, to expanding Jewish learning opportunities for girls and women. Beth would have been thrilled to see the large community of women learning daf yomi." Today’s Daf is sponsored in honor of the 14th yahrzeit of Dr. Beth Samuels a"h on December 30th, 15 Tevet. Beth's life was dedicated to Torah learning, and in particular, to expanding Jewish learning opportunities for girls and women. Beth would have been thrilled to see the large community of women learning daf yomi. And by Debbie Gevir in the memory of her mother, Yocheved Gindsberg on her sixth yahrzeit today. Besides being a model of hesed, kibud horim, and grace, Yocheved was active in torah learning and teaching, especially for women. יהי זכרה ברוך What can one use to fulfill one's obligation for marror? What are all the different types of vegetables mentioned in the mishna? Other sources are brought which list other types. Is there one type more ideal than the others? Can things other than vegetables be used that are bitter? The gemara continually compares matza to marror to derive various criteria. Rav says that all the types that can be used for marror can be planted together in one area. The gemara tries to understand what was he trying to say. One can eat marror moist or dry - is this just for the stalk or also the leaves? What about shriveled? Pickled? Cooked? Stewed? Can you use maaser sheni produce? How would this differ from the same question regarding matza from maaser sheni? What types of things can be done with bran that would or would not lead to leavening? If the food is already baked, it can no longer leaven, even if placed in water.
We live and are surrounded by things that can change us or leave an influence or impacts on us. There are things, people or events that quakes us to our core. Things that may have profoundly impacted us and maybe made us a better person one way or another. In Today’s episode, I’m going to be sharing with you a topic that is near and dear to my heart. Most of you who know me know that I'm a voracious reader and I’m excited to share with you my Top 5 most impactful books in my business and I’d say they all impacted me positively. I’m going to be sharing a little something about the Entrepreneurs Book Club so don’t miss this and who knows, you too might get impacted by these books I’m going to share. In This Episode: [00:20] It’s a solo episode [00:50] Today’s topic [01:40] Entrepreneurs Book Club [03:25] Most important and No.1 in my list: The Founder’s Dilemmas by Noam Wasserman [03:40] What the book is about and the mistakes we make when starting a business. [05:34] The most impactful about the book is naming The C-level roles. [07:12] Second book is The E-myth Revisited by Michael Gerber [07:48] The importance of realizing the 3 most important roles in the business. [09:36] Identifying what role you are in that or roles you should hire. [10:15] Clearly see your role & potential role of your business partner would be. [10:40] The third and has equally impacted me as no.2 is The Virtual Freedom by Chris Ducker [11:00] A must read book before starting a business. [11:23] Foundation to creating and working with a virtual team [12:12] Identifying who are your first hires. [13:13] Importance of creating a forelist. [14:28] Hiring a general VA. [15:10] Fourth book is The Blue Ocean Strategy by W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne [17:05] This book is knowing and identifying a blue ocean [18:40] Example of how to create a blue ocean. [19:50] Introduction to Wizards of Ecom [20:30] The Fifth book is Hug Your Haters by Jay Baer [21:30] Hug your hater is about having a simple customer service approach for any scenario. [22:30] Hope to hear your feedback. Links and Resources: Wizards of Amazon: Wizards of Amazon Courses: Wizards of Amazon Meetup: The Entrepreneurs Book Club Book References: The Founder's Dilemmas by Noam Wasserman: The E-Myth Revisited by Michael Gerber: Virtual Freedom by Chris Ducker: Blue Ocean Strategy by W. Chan Kim & Renee Mauborgne: Hug Your Haters by Jay Baer
Microscope slides are famously fragile. What if you could digitize them and instantly send them to a licensed pathologist for review? This week, Shawn & Ivan are joined by Dr. Aaron Wallace of Lacuna Diagnostics to talk about digital cytology. Aaron recommends Deep Work by Cal Newport (amzn.to/3eOOfGU) & The Founder's Dilemmas by Noam Wasserman (amzn.to/2BjOz31). Learn more about Aaron at lacunadiagnostics.com.
In episode 35 of the Farmer’s Inside Track podcast: #TeamFoodForMzansi journeys to Tarlton, just outside Johannesburg, to check in with agri-powerhouse Vuthlari Chauke. She is a young vegetable farmer on a mission to change the face of agriculture in Mzansi. Besides Chauke, also on the line-up is Jerry Aries, the acting chief director: farmer support and development in the Western Cape. He’s got the latest details on Comprehensive Agricultural Support Programme (CASP) funding applications. Also, the farmer who made his first million at the age of 27, Musawenkosi Kubheka, also joins Farmer’s Inside Track to talk about how a recent Food For Mzansi article about him created further opportunities. And this week Mzansi farmers have selected The Founder’s Dilemmas: Anticipating and Avoiding the Pitfalls That Can Sink a Startup, by Noam Wasserman as their book of the week. You definitely also do not want to miss agricultural economist, Dr Johnny van der Merwe, for the latest price movements in the fresh produce markets. Farmer's Inside Track is hosted by Food For Mzansi journalists Dawn Noemdoe and Duncan Masiwa.
In this episode, Fabio Gratton CEO of inVibe Labs, talks to our host, Cameron Albert-Deitch, about his Book Smart pick, The Founder's Dilemmas by Noam Wasserman
Our guest in this episode, Dr. Noam Wasserman, author of The Founder's Dilemmas (https://www.amazon.com/Founders-Dilemmas-Anticipating-Foundation-Entrepreneurship/dp/0691158304/) teaches how learning to address and solve major issues like dividing or changing the equity between partners makes all the difference between long-term success or failure for small and midsize businesses trying to scale. Dr. Wasserman is the Dean of Sy Syms School of Business at Yeshiva University and was previously a professor at Harvard Business School. He wrote one of the entrepreneurial classics, The Founder's Dilemmas: Anticipating and Avoiding the Pitfalls That Can Sink a Startup. He is also the author of the recent book, Life Is a Startup: What Founders Can Teach Us about Making Choices and Managing Change. Dr. Wasserman shared what he's found makes the biggest difference for business owners in lockdown and the various ever-changing stages of reopening. He also spoke about how 65% of businesses that fail do so because of people issues, i.e., mistakes due to bias and interpersonal conflicts borne of the failure to discuss hard topics and decisions.
Episode 19The FiringTheMan duo interview e-commerce Legend Carlos Alvarez. Carlos is the founder of the largest Amazon Sellers Meetup group in the world. During this episode, we discuss the struggles of doing business in the COVID-19 era, overcoming obstacles, learning lessons from failure, and how Carlos has persevered in his own e-commerce businesses for the last 14 years to achieve 9-figure results. This is an episode you will not want to miss! Books mentioned: “The Founder’s Dilemma” by Noam Wasserman – https://amzn.to/2RVGpCL ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------www.FiringTheMan.com Facebook YouTube Instagram Email us --> support@firingtheman.com
ABOUT THIS EPISODE Welcome to the special 100th episode of Jews You Should Know! This week we feature a brief interview with Israel's ambassador to the UN, Danny Danon. In addition, we include well-wishes from a sampling of our previous guests, including: Jamie Geller (Ep. 5), Charlie Harary (12), Eli Beer (21), Jay Feinberg (23), Sivan Rahav Meir (35), Ashley Blaker (37), Kalman Samuels (46), Menachem Bombach (51), Noam Wasserman (66), Rachel Moore (67), Moe Mernick (78), and Beatie Deutsch (81). Thank you for joining us on the JYSK journey!! -------------------- ABOUT THIS PODCAST Jews You Should Know introduces the broader community to interesting and inspiring Jewish men and women making a difference in our world. Some are already famous, some not yet so. But each is a Jew You Should Know. The host, Rabbi Ari Koretzky, is Executive Director of MEOR Maryland (www.meormd.org), a premier Jewish outreach and educational organization. MEOR operates nationally on twenty campuses and in Manhattan; visit the national website at www.meor.org. Please visit www.JewsYouShouldKnow.com, follow us on Twitter @JewsUShouldKnow or on Facebook. Have feedback for the show, or suggestions for future guests? E-mail us at JewsYouShouldKnow@gmail.com. Want to support this podcast? Visit Patreon.com/JewsYouShouldKnow. A small monthly contribution goes a long way!! A special thank you to Jacob Rupp of the Lift Your Legacy podcast for his invaluable production assistance.
ABOUT THIS EPISODE Noam Wasserman lives in Boston - where he was a longtime, wildly popular Harvard Business School professor - but works in Los Angeles. And while he regularly traverses the country, he also straddles the dual worlds of business development and Jewish commitment. As an academic, Wasserman has researched the challenges faced by founders of new enterprises, and shared his findings with thousands of students, among them many founders-in-waiting. Along the way he has authored several books, including a volume titled "Life is a Startup," applying these traditional business lessons to broader human contexts. Ever community-minded, Wasserman was the founding chairman of the board of a new Jewish high school in Boston, and advises individuals, companies, and non-profits on the healthy practices that will enable them to survive and thrive beyond their nascent "founding" stages. -------------------- ABOUT THIS PODCAST Jews You Should Know introduces the broader community to interesting and inspiring Jewish men and women making a difference in our world. Some are already famous, some not yet so. But each is a Jew You Should Know. The host, Rabbi Ari Koretzky, is Executive Director of MEOR Maryland (www.meormd.org), a premier Jewish outreach and educational organization. MEOR operates nationally on twenty campuses and in Manhattan; visit the national website at www.meor.org. Please visit www.JewsYouShouldKnow.com, follow us on Twitter @JewsUShouldKnow or on Facebook. Have feedback for the show, or suggestions for future guests? E-mail us at JewsYouShouldKnow@gmail.com. Want to support this podcast? Visit Patreon.com/JewYouShouldKnow. A small monthly contribution goes a long way!! A special thank you to Jacob Rupp of the Lift Your Legacy podcast for his invaluable production assistance.
TL;DR: This is a blog about value creation and the control founders have over their startup. You need to give away some control to build something valuable. How much is up to you. Founders and CEOs, Let me ask you a question “Does the degree to which you have founder control of your startup affect your company value?” I am pretty sure your answer is simple and resounding. Yes. I am good for my company. I am what makes it valuable and that will continue to be the case so long as I have breath to run things. Well, it seems you can’t have your cake and eat it too. That is a question Noam Wasserman, former professor at Harvard Business School asked himself. He has published a paper that finds startups where founders retain control of their startup after 3 years are in fact worth less. It seems founding CEOs are bad news for making big valuable companies. Well, the headline anyway. You can read the blog here: https://www.alexanderjarvis.com/2017/...
Our Lean Startup Conference is just a few weeks away, and this week we were lucky enough to host a conversation with one of our keynote speakers, Noam Wasserman, author of the bestselling book The Founder’s Dilemmas, and the author of the new book Life Is a Startup. Noam spoke with Lean Startup Co. Faculty Member, Elliot Susel, about the overlap in founder and life lessons and the importance of proactively tackling those issues in our business and personal lives. In Elliot and Noam’s conversation, they discuss: - Why focusing on people decisions is just as important as product. - Key business lessons we can learn from founders and how we can apply those same lessons to our personal lives. - The importance of doing research well. And much, much more… It was still early in his career when Noam Wasserman recognized the importance of focusing on the people around you. He was just starting out as an engineer when he noticed a pattern. “If we focused on anyone besides ourselves….it was the customers, and a key thing is we then neglected to think about the team we’re building with.” Around the same time, Noam came across an article about venture capitalists by Bill Solomon. In the article, Bill found that 65% of startups that failed did so not because of product issues, but because of people problems and tensions between founders. The importance of that statistic stuck with him. In his own experiences as a founder, Noam realized the significance of understanding the people part of the business. Because when it comes to startups, people are just as important as product. In his shift to academia, Noam continued the pursuit of understanding the key areas where founders make fateful decisions — including people decisions — and how they can make better decisions to increase their chances of success. Email us: education@leanstartup.co Follow Lean Startup Co. @leanstartup https://leanstartup.co/education
Justo Hidalgo co-founded 24symbols 8 years ago, and this 'Spotify for Books' contender is still around and successful. In this week's podcast, we talk about how books really can compete against Angry Birds, the importance of continuing to provide ways for people to easily find and read books, and of balancing your work and home life. In the episode, Justo mentions several great business books in passing so I thought I'd list them here for you. Hacking Growth by Sean Ellis and Morgan Brown (Amazon / Kobo); Scaling Lean by Ash Maurya (Amazon / Kobo); The Founder's Dilemmas by Noam Wasserman (Amazon / Kobo); Venture Deals by Brad Feld (Amazon / Kobo); New Venture Creation by Geoffrey Timmons (apparently out of print but available from Amazon). Transcript (This is a bit of an experiment - let me know if you like transcripts!) John: [00:00:35] Welcome back to Talking Through My Hat. Today I'm talking with Justo Hidalgo, CEO and co-founder of 24symbols, the subscription service for ebooks. He's also an author, a university professor teaching product strategy and innovation. And I just discovered he's also a radio host. So thanks for talking to me today Justo. Justo: [00:00:53] Yeah. It's a pleasure to be here. John: [00:00:56] Yeah, so 24symbols has been around for over eight years now, which is quite an achievement. How've you distinguished yourself from all the other e-book subscription services that have come and gone in that time? What's kind of unique 24symbols thing? Justo: [00:01:10] Well if I really knew [laughs] I would probably sell the idea. Oh yeah the idea's still the same. You know, it's a subscription service for ebooks as you said and other kinds of cultural and entertainment assets like comic books and audiobooks. I believe that the reason we are still here is that since the start, it was very clear for us that these was a long race. That it was gonna take time and that we needed partners to work with us so very very very early in the state as soon as we could we started talking to partners especially in the customer acquisition stage. You continue having the amount of people that wanted to read and that we were unable to reach just because of our size. John: [00:01:53] Okay. So which sort of partners were you kind of linking up with there? Justo: [00:01:57] Oh but mainly right now is mobile carriers. We started having relationships with them in 2013 I think. These are typically launch and relationships both in terms of getting their relationship to work - you know very well how it is to work with big companies! John: [00:02:11] Yeah. Justo: [00:02:12] Yeah. And then of course they need some time to work. So right now we're for example in Latin America in a few countries, also in Germany, and we are also working with having some others. In some of the cases, some regions didn't work. We tried and it didn't work. In other cases, well the unit economics didn't work. You know in some countries for example, where the price of ebooks is too high but they are very used to very low-cost services. Well that's fine - we'd love to work there but that's very difficult. And also we're also started to diversify, to try to find other areas where books are necessary - for example transportation companies, hospitality companies, you know. Anywhere where someone can spend some time reading, we are trying to be there. John: [00:03:00] OK. Yeah. It's the hard thing about business, it's not building a product. It's finding someone to use it. And I think this strategy of working with people who have lots of customers who they need to find interesting things for, like mobile phone companies and as you say trains and hotels and stuff. I think that's a really interesting way of doing that. Justo: [00:03:20] Yes I mean, what we do is very straightforward. I mean we want, as someone from my team always says, we want to feed people books. You know, people want to eat this that we offer. But the difficulty is that being a generic service, a horizontal service, you need to provide a very good value proposition. We have 24symbols the B2C service that allows you to do whatever you want. But then of course you have to look for other ways to reach the people that may not know that they want to read. And this sounds like a very, you know, commercial or product-ish but it's the truth you know what we found it with more carriers, we're finding it in other verticals that people, you know they find out that you know, instead of playing Angry Birds, they can read some books sometimes. John: [00:04:07] Yeah well that's the thing, isn't it, that we say, you know, that books are now in competition with all forms of entertainment but they always were. And, you know, there's something there that people have always liked, so it's gonna be really great. So it's fantastic to find that you're finding this place for yourselves, this way of reaching customers and stuff through these partnerships. Why did you first create 24symbols? What was the big idea where you thought, I'm going to do this mad insane thing and an e-book business. Justo: [00:04:34] Well I think there are many many reasons. First, personally, I always wanted to build a company, so I come from a family where my parents always ran small businesses, and I kind of grew up seeing their difficulties, the challenges, the hard work. John: [00:04:50] A realistic view of what it might be like. Justo: [00:04:52] Yeah yeah. But at the same time, how my parents built something from scratch providing value to the community. You know they started with a drugstore and they started building driving schools - one and two and then three, before they retired. So, for me, it's part of my memories where I had to take chairs from my house to the driving school because suddenly there are lots of people in their theory classes. And then the opposite when there's some competition coming up and there are some struggles there in the family, but I always kind of looked at my parents to see how hard they work and is like: this is cool. But then I start, you know, I did my Computer Science degree, I started working for companies - always small companies but always like with a salary - and I always had, like, yeah this is good but, you know, I want to try to replicate what my parents did in a new way you know, of course, because I had other abilities, you know, my parents... John: [00:05:50] You've got to work on your own skill set than. Justo: [00:05:52] Exactly. My parents were great salesmen and I'm different but I know Computer Science. So that's kind of my first reason. Then, more specifically, 24symbols - technology. In other companies I worked for technology was basically an end, you know, so I spent many years working in a tech company doing data integration stuff, which has been really valuable for me afterwards in 24symbols. And I really enjoyed it. I got my PhD there. All that stuff. But I had the need to build something that people could use as a final result. Basically, what we were building there was a tool to build solutions. And I wanted to be that solution. And then I would say that the third reason is that thinking about that and related to what I have said this act of of the "Spotify for books" at that time. Everything I really wanted, it merged technology of course because at that time creating a cloud reader subscription service with all the cloud DRM was technologically quite challenging. At at the same time it was books, it was basically giving people books to read, which is something I've enjoyed all of my life. So, you know, these three things plus working with my colleagues at that time, my partners that I had worked with them in the past. You know, one of them was a previous student of mine. With another, we had been like 15 years working together - made a lot of sense. So he was kind of the final push as to say: This makes sense. Then of course from a business perspective it looked like people were talking (and you know that because you were at that time very deep) talking about you know subscription services in publishing. There were many doubts but there was also many good opportunities and we decided to give it a go. John: [00:07:37] So how did you form that initial kind of team, the co-founding team, the people who have, hopefully, the same kind of vision, of passion, that you did? How did you build that group? Justo: [00:07:48] Yeah I think that, typically, most of the decisions we make here while creating a company, and you know that very well, John, is pure serendipity or random. But some of the decisions you make are quite thought out. And in this case I think we kind of gave it a good thought. It was basically the four of us initial partners who came from the same company, that B2B tech company I mentioned. So we typically had, you know, coffee or had lunch together and talked about books. Most of the times were business books, but some of the time it was narrative, and we kind of shared this love for books. So at the beginning we would think, you know, of moonlighting projects of bringing American books, business books, to Spain and getting the rights and translating them and, you know, basically becoming a publisher. John: [00:08:38] Yeah. Justo: [00:08:39] I think it is good for the publishing company that we didn't do it! [Laughs] We would have been a horrible publisher, I believe. But that kind of started to say, maybe we should do something about this. And this idea came in early 2010 about the "Spotify for books". And then I remember very well the presentation of Steve Jobs with the first iPad. And that was the moment where it was like, Wow, this is the future. I mean that was our bet. And then it's when we start thinking, OK, with us four, does that make sense? It kind of makes sense - I mean, we have sales people, all of us were technical people. But you know, one of us very high experience in sales and marketing, the CTO had very deep down experience with with this technology, had experience with product and also had lived in the United States for a while doing product management and sales and marketing, so that we kind of had most of what we needed. And of course we missed the publishing side. So that's why one of our first - we tried to, and we found our one of our first investors to be part of the industry in Spain. John: [00:09:53] So, your co-founding group, as you say, you're all technical people so you're presumably all together writing the product, but then sharing out all those other roles as needed, kind of thing. Justo: [00:10:04] Yeah. So, building the product, like coding, it was our CTO Angel. Then I worked in the product and, you know, the data architecture. And then one or the other worked on the product management and product design but the four of us were able to give insight. It's about, you know, we could have very detailed discussions about, I don't know, I remember one discussion about the cache, you know - the book cache - how the information was going to be kept secure or whatever. And so we were able to - but then each of us had very specific roles, which changed completely as, for example, I was going to be focusing a lot on product but, you know, since we launched at the London Book Fair in 2011, it was clear that because of my English, because of all the things I could do that my other partners couldn't do, I was going to be more like PR. John: [00:11:02] Yeah - the public face for the English-speaking world. Justo: [00:11:04] Exactly. And that's that's very funny because out in Spain, it was very clear that one of my partners was the CEO at the time. Everyone knew my partner but nobody knew me. But, you know, outside in the English-speaking world, it was the total opposite. It was like, So you're not the CEO? No, but that doesn't matter! You know, so, and he also talks to me! John: [00:11:27] So you kind of mentioned that you started off with you that little group of you, you were a kind of a book group effectively, and one of the things you did was talk about business books. Is that how you've gone about learning to run a business yourself? Do you go to books, is it kind of web sites and stuff these days? Anything particular that you found useful? Or are you more of a, kind of, throw it up in the air, try it and see what happens? Justo: [00:11:48] You learn from everywhere you can. I mean, I have a very small anecdote about that, you know, then we can talk about books. So, we got accepted by Seedcamp, which is a London-based accelerator that was here in 2012. So one of the incredible things about Seedcamp is that, I think it was a Monday, I said something to them. I said, you know, since we're Spotify for books, I would like to meet someone from Spotify. You know, it would be great. John: [00:12:16] Yeah. Justo: [00:12:17] So, two days, they got me a VP, a vice president of Spotify, talking to him, and the meeting was five minutes - five minutes. It was, like, you know, we're 24symbols blah blah blah blah blah. "Oh yeah?" So he just put the hand on my shoulder and said, "Quit." [Laughing] Sorry, maybe my English is, I speak too fast. Let me explain that again. 24symbols... "Yeah yeah, you're like Spotify but for ebooks. Quit." So this is something like, OK. "So you want to be like Spotify for books, right. What's your background - technical this and that? Yeah OK. So it's great but only take into account one thing: if you are successful, you are not going to be a tech company, you are not going to be a content company, you're going to be a law firm." So, basically Spotify is the best law firm in London, in Europe. OK. So that's going to be your role. You're having a huge understanding of the law. Huge understanding of the relationship with publishers. Yeah that's going to be 24symbols so, you want to go for it, that's it. And for me those five minutes were huge in understanding where I was getting into. We're not a law firm at all but it's true that that, for many years, that's basically what I've done. I've basically learned to negotiate contracts with publishers before we tell other people. So these things are what I learn from. But also of course, you know, I'm more like a product guy so books like the classic "Crossing the chasm" or "The Innovator's Dilemma" or "Made to Stick". But there are also some very recent ones that are really good like Sean Ellis's "Hacking Growth" or Ash Maury's "Scaling Lean", which I don't know how it's going in sales but I think it's much better than his previous one, "Running Lean". And then from a business perspective there's a really good one called "The Founders' Dilemmas" from Noam Wasserman is really good for founders. I'd really recommend it. John: [00:14:20] Yeah, I found that really helpful at the beginning, just to get your head around some of the things that are coming your way. Justo: [00:14:24] Exactly and what it means to be together in a company with your partners. And of course for example Brad Feld's "Venture Deals" is absolutely key in terms of negotiating deals with VCs or business angels. And maybe a lesser known one is called "New Venture Creation" by Geoffrey Timmons. It's from a course at Stanford University - it's a huge book, it's really huge, it's a thousand pages, but full of good information for someone who started a business. So basically, my part of the business plan was written with this book open. Because there are so many good information. John: [00:15:03] So as we think about business and product and stuff, and when you think about it, you look back on eight years and the ways you've grown and changed and stuff. When you think about the next eight years, or eighty years or whatever it is, how do you think about that and where you want to be? And if so, how do you plot that kind of work? John: [00:15:26] Yes, That's a very difficult question! Well, I have no idea! [Laughs] Most of the time, we're trying to continue, I wouldn't say survive exactly but to continue - to thrive and to continue giving them the best product. But it is true that when you see where the industry is going and where the entertainment is going and even what the data for me is. And you know, because of my background, I think a lot about, you know, how this is going to evolve in terms of what kind of entertainment is going to be created. I believe that a service like 24symbols makes sense in the following, you know, five to eight years or whatever. I think a subscription service - the area of consumption instead of ownership - is there. People are consuming more Netflix, more HBO, more Spotify, more Amazon Prime. So we're looking to use that as part of our life. I think in terms of ownership, we're always going to own things and it's because it's an integral part of who we are as a species. So everyone, you know, all of us are still going to have books - I still have a full room of books - but they're going to be the books that are important to us. And it's going to be the same with everything. John: [00:16:40] I think this is interesting. We often hear "book people" talk about how it's really important that people buy books and own books and stuff, and this terrible, terrible modern thing of subscription is awful. When I was growing up, most of the books I read, I got from the library. They weren't my books. I took them for a week, I read them, and I gave them back. If I wanted to read it again I had to go back, find the book and bring it in. And OK, yes, then you'd find your favourite books or favourite authors and then you would buy those and want to own them for the long term. And I think we get a little bit too obsessed with ownership, you know. Borrowing, subscription stuff, is actually, has always been a really good low-barrier way to discover stuff. Justo: [00:17:21] Absolutely. You know, of course I have to agree! John: [00:17:26] Yeah you would, of course. Justo: [00:17:27] But I don't think this is a fight between, you know, print books or having books. There are some books that we're going to want to have because it's part of our life. And actually we might actually buy a better edition because we want to have it there, but because he has a story. And there's some others like, you know, I read it, that's fine. I have some notes, that's fine. You know, 24 symbols or whoever, you keep that. Just in case. But that's that's how I say to think of a more ahead is, you know. How people or why people read I think is the question to try to solve. John: [00:18:00] Yeah I think that's going to be a fascinating one. So when you look at the business, when you look at 24symbols, what is it that you find hardest about being a CEO, about running the business being a founder whatever? You know, some things obviously come naturally and, for you I guess from the sound of it, product is your focus and that's what you like. But what are the things you kind of shy away from but still have to do? Justo: [00:18:22] But still have to do, yes. This is totally personal, I mean, as Justo. I don't like to negotiate. And I know that's that's a horrible thing to say as a CEO. But you know I decided many years ago that I was going to be honest on this. I have to do it and of course, if you have to be hard on a negotiation, you have to be hard. But, man, it's just some people that enjoy negotiating, you know, it's like, No no, we have to negotiate. It's like, no, you know, let's get a deal fast, that's it, you know. And that I have my own issues with that. Then of course you have to learn and I've been successful in some negotiations. But wow, for me that's the hard thing. John: [00:19:10] That's really interesting. When we were talking earlier, actually before we started the show itself, of this thing of running a business and being a parent. I mean I'm in the same kind of shoes as you with kids and I love that you were sharing a quick story about looking after your daughter while you were having to do a presentation. Justo: [00:19:31] Oh yeah. Yes. Yes. The thing is that my wife and I, we both have companies so we both are entrepreneurs. She's more in the health side and I'm more in the book side. We have a daughter, an almost 4 year old daughter, and we have to kind of keep a balance of how we take care of that. Because for us taking care of Olivia is a priority. So it has good things, you know. I can take her to school every single morning, no problem. But there's moments where, you know, it's impossible to manage and so this year, this academic year, there's been two occasions where I had to give a talk to, in both cases, like 150-200 people. And I couldn't find someone to take care of Olivia. So I said that to the organisers and in both cases they said, Just come with her. Like, are you sure? It's like, well let's try it. So you know there were some people taking care of her, playing with her while I was giving my talk. But in both of them she just wanted to be with me, so she would be up with me in the final minutes or whatever. But in the first one, she came to me while I was giving the talk - actually the talk was in English so kind of my brain was totally busy with, you know, in general translating everything I want to say. And she just came to me and said, Daddy! Yeah you want you come here? Yes, but I want to go pee. Just like that. Well, can you what with this other person? No no no no, I want to go with you. So I had to ask the audience can you wait for five minutes? [Laughter] And the audience started to clap and, you know, we go. But I was totally embarrassed because for me, you know, this is serious. There's like, I'm giving a talk. John: [00:21:21] Two halves of your life blending. Justo: [00:21:23] Yeah. But the audience saw it as, you know, this is life. This is life as well and people are starting to understand that this happens. And I wouldn't rush with her. You know, she did what she had to do and then we came back, and people were clapping again and I finished and everything went well. They invited me to give a talk again. John: [00:21:39] So that went very well then. Justo: [00:21:41] That went well. But, yes, this is what you have to do when you have a startup and you want you to continue engaging and commiting to your family. John: [00:21:51] So as you look back over the last 8 years or so of running this business, creating it, building it - what have you learned about yourself from doing that? You know, do you still think of yourself as the same person or have you learned more about who you are or have you changed? Justo: [00:22:08] Yes I think everyone in 8 years changes a lot, you know, regardless of what you do. But it's true that running your business means having to make a lot of decisions, having to do things that you didn't expect that you would do and even enjoying it throughout the process. As I said, I never thought that I could negotiate the things I've been able to negotiate. I came from a career, a professional career, that was basically meant to be an expert in a very specific area. I did my PhD in data integration so I was meant to be that. John: [00:22:44] More specialist kind of thing. Justo: [00:22:47] Very specialist. And so even when I decided to be part of this, even my previous boss, who is someone I truly respect for everything he's done, was like: are you sure? You could be a big-data expert and things like that. You know what it's like. I don't know if I would be able to do that, but I want to try this. And it taught me a lot about, you know, having to manage many things at the same time and all that stuff. And then one thing I learned is, for us as for any company, we've had our ups and downs. And I remember, in 2012 we had a very very strong down and I never thought I would be able to have this, well now this word is resilience, right? It's to continue. We were like 15 months without having payments at all, you have no salary. And we are not rich. We don't come from rich families. So we had to do many different things because we believed and that, and for 15 months it was like I don't know how I'm going to do it. Of course sometimes you think, I'm what, 38 at that time or 36, 37. And I looked at my account and it was like, What am I doing? You know this doesn't make any sense. But you know I like this. I think this makes sense to me and you continue doing it. John: [00:24:06] So what is it that then brings you back every day in the face of those difficulties? It gets very real sometimes doesn't it? Justo: [00:24:14] Yes. John: [00:24:15] What brings you back? Justo: [00:24:18] I think in this case, at least for 24symbols, it's this vision. As I said before, I wanted to build something that could be used by people. And I know this sounds very typical but in my case at least this is true is of course we have our bugs, we have our complaints, but also we have lots of people saying, hey I'm enjoying! I read everyday with you, you know, with your books and this is just amazing. This is just amazing that you are building up a service where hundreds of thousands of people are being able to read and that's what in 2012 and other years it's like, OK one more. There's a challenge there. I remember I had a chance to talk to Ash Maurya the author of "Running Lean" and "Scaling Lean". And we were talking and he kind of agreed with me at that time that we still need to learn more about entrepreneurship like in judo or martial arts. You know, when you do martial arts, this is something you are taught: when you quit. You know, these guys are beating me. Okay so let's quit. You know, that's it. In entrepreneurship, you don't know that, you have no idea. There is no one who can tell you and in our case in 2010 and all the years, we were lucky but we could have not been lucky and we would have been in trouble. So that's I think in terms of knowing or learning more about what it means to build a company or a startup. We still need to learn more about, you know, when to quit, when it's the right moment to say that's it. John: [00:25:51] We gave it our best shot. John: [00:25:52] That's it, you know, next. John: [00:25:56] Well that seems a very topical note on which to say thanks very much Justo for that fascinating conversation and it's been great to hear from you again. Justo: [00:26:03] It's great you always talk to you John. Thanks so much. John: [00:26:07] Thanks to Justo for that fantastic interview. I'm always energized when I talk to him because he's got this real passion for just making books available to people. And it's really great, it's been great over years now to follow 24symbols in the way that they have persisted and survived. There are so many companies that have been touted as the "Spotify for books" and they're still here, they're still doing really well and just getting books in front of people. And the fact that, you know, this consumption model of streaming books, of borrowing books, of just having books for a while is nothing new. You know, as I said in the interview, you know, we've borrowed books from libraries for hundreds of years, decades. And this is just the new iteration of that model. So it is great to see people pushing that forward and developing it. So thanks very much to Justo. Next week we're going to be talking to Emma Donnan who is a ghostwriter. If you've ever wondered what ghostwriters do, how they go about things, how they fit into the world of publishing, tune in next week and hear what Emma has to say. Until then thank you very much.
In today's episode, the team discuss the topic of co-founders. Ross & Steve talk about their experience regarding starting Airbyte as a team, whilst Alex raises points from his studies including the research from the book 'The Founder's Dilemmas' by Noam Wasserman. Instagram & Twitter - @airbyteUK
Derrick is coming back from a much-needed vacation in San Francisco and enjoyed walking tours thanks to the Detour app. He returns refreshed and was able to get back into the swing of things and even into his yoga classes. It was also officially announced this week that Clay Collins, Founder and CEO of LeadPages is stepping down and will be replaced by former COO John Tedesco. Clay had a great amount of self-awareness in his announcement and this brings up the topic of The Founder’s Dilemma and best management practices for startups. Last week Ben published a new sample course video on speeding up slow test suites. He is improving his recording and editing processes using Final Cut Pro. He is now working on the fifth video and nearing the halfway point on the course. He is also going to try live streaming the practice run of his next video and incorporating early feedback into the final recording. To market the course, he is looking forward to traveling the country and speaking at Ruby meetups. Today’s Topics Include: Taking real vacations and disconnecting from work in order to recharge The restorative power of yoga Company history and leadership changes at Leadpages The Founder’s Dilemma and knowing what you are optimizing for Freedom, wealth and ambition as a startup founder Outsourcing and the value of having a personal assistant Video editing processes, software and live streaming Ruby meetup tours as a marketing tool If you’re enjoying the show please give us your ratings and reviews in iTunes. Links and resources: RefactoringRails.io Drip Detour - guided walking tour app Leadpages The Founder’s Dilemma by Noam Wasserman Rich vs. King in the Real World: Why I sold my company by Jason Cohen Don’t Build a Business Because You Want Freedom by Jeff Goins Startups for the Rest of Us podcast Final Cut Pro
This is a very strong episode with full of startup advice! Episode #39 is up! This is a very special interview! Taken at around 6:30 in the morning, the sun rising (yes, look at my face
According to Noam Wasserman, a professor at Harvard Business School, if you're an entrepreneur then you will often face situations where you need to confront this dichotomy. When you start up, do you set off on your own (and stay king), or find a co-founder (losing control, but increasing the odds of success)? Do you choose investors who stay in the shadows (remain king), or ones who are hands-on (get rich)? When you reach your limits, do you remain CEO (and stay king) or take a back seat and hire somebody in to take your place (get rich)? --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/business-of-software/message
Audio File: Download MP3Transcript: Lucy Sanders: Hi this is Lucy Sanders, the CEO, co‑founder of NCWIT. The National Center for Women and Information Technology. We have another one of our really fabulous interviews today with women who have been very successful in the entrepreneurial space. Today we're interviewing a woman who has experience across for profit and the non‑profit entrepreneurial sectors. Larry Nelson: Good. Lucy: Good. With me is Larry Nelson, w3w3.com. Hi Larry. Larry: Hi, I'm really happy to be here. I really loved your site and our listeners are going to learn it. A number of wonderful lessons and were posted on our home page and NCWIT channel as well as a podcast directory and blog. Of course, we're in really shine is on the ncwit.org site. Lucy: Yes, very excited about that. Today we're talking to Christina Wallace and as I mentioned before, Christina has a lot of experience in both for profit and the non‑profit sectors. She was also named as one of Mashables 44 female founders to know. Now, all of our listeners are going to know Christina. Larry: There you go. Lucy: That's absolutely awesome. Today she's the founding partner of BridgeUp: STEM and certainly near and dear to our heart. For those of you listening, STEM is Science, Technology, Engineering and Math and BridgeUP: STEM is a new educational initiative at the American Museum of Natural History and it's focused on introducing girls and minorities to computer science again, something that we care passionately about. Before her role at BridgeUP STEM, she was vice‑president at Startup Institute and the founder and CEO of Venture Back eCommerce brand, Quincy Apparels. A management consultant with Boston Consulting Group, who we used to hire when I worked at AT&T, and an arts manager at the Metropolitan Opera. Wow, what a span of things. I can't wait to hear about it in addition to, she has an MBA from Harvard University. Christina, welcome. We're really happy to have you here. Before we start and get into the interview questions maybe just a little bit more for listeners about BridgeUp: STEM. I'm sure they'll be curious to know what you're up to there. Christina Wallace: Sure, we're very excited. We're about six months into a five year grant to build BridgeUP: STEM. Helen Gurly Brown Foundation was very generous in being our founding partner to support this. It is a new portfolio of programs actually. There's several pieces of this that we're building over the next five years at the museum, really focused on diversifying the pipeline of talent going into STEM. Really trying to get more girls, more minorities, under‑served students into the pipeline, getting them into computer science and encouraging them and inspiring them. Our first piece of initiative is what we call our Brown Scholars Program and that is intended as an intensive two‑year after school program for 9th and 10th grade girls to come to the museum two days a week after school and we'll teach them to code in python. We'll introduce them to some statistics and data science and a little bit of algorithms and databases and data visualization. We'll do that through using the scientific data sets here and letting them become mini data scientists. Getting to play with genome data, getting to play with our digital universe atlas of the universe and, in their second year, do real research with some of our scientists here and the opportunity to really contribute to some of the work being done. That's our first big kick off for this program. Our girls start in our first cohort in February and we'll do another cohort sort of every trimester. Fall, Spring and Summer for the next few years. Then we're adding additional programming this summer for middle school students, boys and girls, trying to get out into the boroughs of New York City so it's not just something we have on the upper west side. Then we're really looking into professional development and curriculum development opportunities for public school teachers. Trying to bring computational thinking and computer science into existing math and science classrooms. Trying to really give the students of New York an opportunity to get exposed to this discipline and hoping to piquÈ their interest so that they're, you know, thinking about this as a real opportunity when they go to college. Lucy: And we like that at NCWIT, I'll tell you what. [laughs] Larry: Yes. Ain't that the truth. Lucy: That is the truth. Christina, why don't you tell our listeners a bit about how you first got interested in technology and, as you look out there with all the great technologies you mentioned, data science for example. What other kinds of technologies do you see that you think are really exciting? PARTICIPANT: Sure. So, I got into technology pretty young without realizing that it was a thing, or a thing that I could get into. My mom was a secretary in the computer science department and Michigan State University. We got to play with one of the very first laptops. It didn't have an internal hard drive, it was a dual floppy with a green screen so you could boot it up on one floppy and then you could run a program off the other. And got to participate in some of the early experiments that some of the professors at Michigan State were doing with fingerprint scanning, which seemed so out there in 1991. And really got to see that this was something kind of cool and exciting from the future. I've always was a math nerd, was a math major all through college and took some early programming classes as part of that major. I didn't really put one and one together until business school. I started my career, as you said, at the Metropolitan Opera, I started off on the art side. I've always been both the technologist and a creative artsy person and sort of thought the arts was where I was going to be where I made my home. When I got to business school and discovered there were all the tech start‑ups and sort of the creativity that came with creating something from nothing from a product and a business and really getting to kind of imagine something and then go build it, combined with the power of technology and computer science and data and all of those pieces. It just kind of clicked for the first time. That's how I made my path back into this. It's a little bit secluded, but technology is always been there from the beginning. In terms of the stuff I'm really excited about, I think data science is the thing right now. Computer programming, web dev, it's exciting. I like to make pretty things and I like to have them live online. Certainly mobile apps have been of focus for a long time. Being able to ask big questions from giant data sets and really get those in place that can help you design better products. It can help you think about customer segmentation a little bit better. In our case, to help you understand the human body or how different fossils might have originated from different family trees within evolution. In the case of our digital universe, finding new XO planets or seeing what else is out there in the giant universe. I think that's what's really exciting because there's more data now than there's ever existed ever. Larry: [laughs] Christina: It just seems to be compounding. Learning the tools and the skill set to be able to ask those questions and answer them is what gets me excited. Larry: Wow. That's really interesting. Lucy: What's an XO planet? Larry: Yeah. What is an XO planet? Christina: An XO planet is a planet that exists outside of our solar system. Our planet all rotate around the sun. Lucy: I'm such a moron. Christina: The sun isn't the only star that has planets. Our astronomers that search for XO planets are looking for planets that rotate around other stars. Lucy: Thank you for that. [laughs] Christina: You could tell I work at a science museum now. [laughs] Lucy: Yup. That's awesome. Larry: With all of these, this is very fascinating. Just why is it that you are an entrepreneur? What is it about entrepreneurship that makes you tick? Christina: Oh, man. The creating something from nothing is just the thing that drives me. I was a theater director and a producer all throughout college. Going from that, spark of an idea to the plan of how we're going to do it, and then actually building it even if it requires some duct tape and holding two sticks together. Larry: [laughs] Christina: Hoping no one pushes a little bit too hard on the scenery. That's always been the conception to the execution in its first, second and 12th iteration, ideally under intense time, pressure with fewer resources than you would like is just what gets me excited, I think. I've never been at the point of scaling companies. I certainly haven't been at the point to make them big and IPO or any of that. It's sort of that zero to two that gets me really excited. When I created Quincy Apparel with my co‑founder, it's sort of the first time that we got to take this experience from the arts and kind of throw it onto a business model and see how that works and just...I don't know. Butting your head against the wall a hundred times and having it work 101 is just so exciting that I had to do it again [laughs] . When I moved onto Startup Institute and got to open a New York office, it was great to be given a product and ideas that they already figured out, but the question of how do we make it work in New York or will it work in New York? Larry: [laughs] Christina: If it works in New York, how do we make it work in other places too? Then, now getting to be able to start‑up inside a museum that has such an amazing brand and cultural trove. Everyone thinks who about MNH, their first reaction was always, "I love that museum. It's love." Larry: [laughs] Christina: You don't get to build something that's attached to love very often. Lucy: Awesome. I loved the Night at the Museum movie. [laughs] I love them also. Christina: We just had our first hackathon here at the museum, which was a big deal. To say the word "hackathon" in the museum and to let people spend the night and create something on our digital universe is exciting. Lucy: It was at the museum? Christina: It's the best of both worlds. The Night at the Museum, the 3:00 AM in the Hall of the Universe combined with, "Here, take our data. Build something cool on top of it." Lucy: It's so cool. That is awesome. Along this pathway, who has influenced you? You have mentors, role models, or people you've admired from afar? Christina: Yeah. There's been quite a few. One of them that stands out so immediately was a professor I had at business school, Dr. Noam Wasserman. He teaches this course called Founder's Dilemmas. It basically goes through all the ways that a start‑up could fail. It had nothing to do with your products sucking. Larry: [laughs] Christina: It's mostly about interpersonal skills, founder things, legal things, and how to think about who you need on your team. It's just the nuts and the bolts and the playbook for how to actually take an idea and turn it into a business that can continue to exist. It was a complete accident that I got into this class as a virtue of our class selection process. Maybe the second time he was teaching it, it wasn't in demand then as it is now. I actually tried to get out of the class, and I told him that. Lucy: [laughs] Christina: I was going to take this other education class and I couldn't get out of it. I was like, "I'm so sorry. Please forget that I told you I was trying to leave the class." [laughter] Christina: It ended up being one of the best experiences that I had at school. He stayed as one of my close mentors throughout this thing. Always on speed dial when I needed him during Quincy and even post my startup as I thought about, "What do I do next?" "How do I build a career within the start‑up world without being always the founder or always kind of driving this?" He's just been always there for me. I try to pay it back when I can, going back and teaching in his class or contributing when I can. He's been just a huge supporter, from the beginning, even when I told him I wasn't interested in being there on purpose. Larry: [laughs] Christina: And then I think the other person that really just has been driving me, especially in New York is Rachel Sklar. Lucy: Oh sure. Christina: She's the founder of "Change the Ratio" and "The List" and just has been on the forefront of trying to get more visibility and opportunity and access for women in tech, trying to make sure that not every conference is the stale pale male lineup of speakers. Trying to really call out biases when she sees them in media, or in companies, in the way that funders and VC's think about the work they're doing. She's unflagging in this regard. She takes a lot of criticism sometimes. It's hard getting to the forefront of a revolution, but she just does it and she always looks great doing it. She has so much energy and has been one of the reasons I've gotten such a great network of women in New York, from the beginning that have exponentially helped me succeed here and have become some of my best friends, which is pretty awesome to have that kind of a community. Lucy: Absolutely. Larry: Boy, that's better than dessert. Yes, that's good. Christina: [laughs] Lucy: Better than dessert. Larry: Though, Christina, let me ask this, with all the things you've been through and you've developed and you've been a part of and everything else, what's been the toughest thing you've had to do in your career? Christina: The toughest thing I've had to do in my career was to get back up after my company failed. It's something that I try to talk a lot about, because I don't think failure is something that high‑achieving, go‑getter people really think about it until the moment that they're in it themselves. It can feel really, kind of career ending or overwhelming or any of those things, and it's not, at least in the start‑up world. The moment that I knew that we were going to shut down and went through that whole process of unwinding the company. Then I went home and I crawled into my bed and I didn't leave for three weeks. There was this moment of paralysis, of like, "Well what do I do now? " In addition to the, "I have no skills. I'm generalist. I'm a little bit of everything and no one's going to want to hire me," through to the like, "How do I look my investors in the face again," and say, "I lost your money. I'm so sorry. That was never something that I thought would happen." To, "What about my employees?" They pay their rent with paychecks that I was giving them and they don't have them anymore. I've had kids on my health insurance plan. All of these things are going through your head and it can feel overwhelming. I gave myself a couple of weeks to watch The West Wing and to eat seamless and not see anyone. Then I got back up. That four‑week period was probably the hardest thing I've ever had to do personally or professionally, but I did it and it all worked out. I don't think any point in the last two years, anyone has asked me, except from a "I want to learn perspective," no one's asked me "Why did your company fail? That's such a terrible reflection of you as a human being or an indication of your ability or your potential or your worth as a person." It's never came up. That was surprising and something I hope especially more women experience, at least in a lot of the public speaking I do and the mentoring I do. High achieving young women have never really failed at basically anything. The potential for failure, I hope, doesn't prevent them from trying. Lucy: That is so well said. In many of these cases, in both of the last questions you answered, you said like in the case of your professor, you know, "I didn't want to be there and yet, I learned so much." Nobody wants to fail, but definitely it's one of the places you learn a lot. Larry: Yep. Christina: Oh yeah. Lucy: You learn how to lead in hard times. That's very hard. I don't want to say it's remarkable experience because you don't say, "I hope you fail," but there's a lot of learning that can happen there. Sort of along those lines, you've already given us great advice about being an entrepreneur. If you were sitting here now, with young people talking about entrepreneurship, what other advice would you give them about being an entrepreneur? Christina: Not everyone should be an entrepreneur. Right now, it's being very popularized. It's in the Zeitgeist. We're sort of turning a lot of entrepreneurs into these rock stars. That's great that we're giving the visibility and the platform to sort of show off that this is one potential path, but it's not the path for everyone. There's also a lot that can be done, and it can be very fulfilling. It can be the right path to be an early hire at a start‑up, and to be employee number two or number one or number ten. To recognize that I want to be in a place that creates value. I want to be at a place that is very close to it's customers and listens for their feedback and iterates. I want to be at a place that values learning of it's employees and is really focused on professional development and opportunity for us as well as creating value for investors. Identify that start‑ups or technology companies or however you want to define this is a sector that you would really like to be part of without being the first one off the ship, with the idea and no money and living on the couch and taking all the risk. There's a lot of great experiences and obviously, we need entrepreneurs in order to drive innovation. But you don't have to be an entrepreneur to be entrepreneurial. That's the distinction that, when I'm talking to a lot of the young students that I'm mentoring, really trying to help them define "Why do you want to be an entrepreneur? What specifically are you impassioned about solving a specific problem. Do you just see a potential opening in a market that you want to take advantage of?" Or, do you say, "I'm looking at the jobs in front of me in consulting and banking and brand management. None of those look exciting. I really liked that startup movie. I'm going to go start a company because it's not that hard to get $25,000 and two friends to build something at a hackathon." Those are very different things. To really identify where you think you sit and that it might change over time. You might not be ready to be an entrepreneur right out of school, or even in your 20's, but you want to get that experience. At some point, when you find that thing that you can't stop thinking about, and that opportunity that you just have to build, because no one else can build it except you, then you go and take that plunge. You risk everything to build it and that's totally legitimate. It doesn't have to be just his second and you don't have to be the founder to still get that entrepreneurial experience. Lucy: That's very wise. Larry: Boy, that's for sure. Christina I want to thank you for sharing the experience that you went through a few years ago. It's really a great turn on for a lot of people who really could use that extra push. Now I'm going to ask you another question... Christina: Sure. Larry: ...That kind of ties in with that. What are the personal characteristics that you have that given you the advantage of being an entrepreneur? Christina: This is a great question. I was reading a Steve Blank blog post on this today on the "First Round Capital" blog about what to look for when you're basically dating for co‑founders or what specific traits to look for. I don't remember the exact quotes that he put in there, but he basically outlined it as someone who can focus in the midst of extreme turmoil. Larry: [laughs] Christina: And it's function and moving pieces. Someone who is resilient and has endurance, that this is not a sprint, and it's such a clichÈ but it's so important to especially if you've never run a marathon. To understand what it means to run a marathon because it's not a sprint, it's a marathon. To have that resilience to keep getting back up and continue to try and push through. Someone who just has that work ethic to put in the hours. It's not just about long nights so that you can claim that you're working hard. But it's not like a work‑life balance thing. At least that's the beginning. To have that understanding of the discipline required for the home marshmallow test. Can you wait till tomorrow to get two marshmallows versus getting one marshmallow right now? Do you have the discipline to push through for a delayed gratification? Do you have the resilience and the endurance to pick yourself up even after you've been thrown to the ground 20 times? Do you have that ability to focus and make decisions when you're in sort of extreme chaos and dysfunction? Or does that paralyze you? Because that's an early stage company, the very beginnings of entrepreneurship. It's not about executing against an idea, it's trying to narrow down what that idea is. Triggering out what type of business plan that you are trying to execute against his and being able to prioritize and assign resources to different things when everything is priority number one. Some people have life experiences that just naturally prepare them for it. Thanks to you for saying that the ideal founder in his opinion of someone who grew up in a dysfunctional family and was a platoon army leader. [laughter] Christina: That gives you that perspective of chaos but decision making and leadership. Some people have those experiences. I would argue that, I was a costly trained pianist, and challenged for 16 years. That honed my discipline side of my brain, the ability to sit still and practice six hours a day. In hopes that three months from now, this piece will be ready to perform. I certainly grew up in a slightly dysfunctional, crazy things moving around and changing all the time kind of home life. From the endurance and the resilience piece, I run marathons and I climb mountains. I don't do either those things because I really like sweating. It's a way to sort of build that endurance muscle to push through and kind of recognize that head space that you've been there before and you can kind of get to the end of it. Lucy: Here in Boulder we have mountains and marathons. [laughter] Larry: Uh‑huh. Christina: There you go. Lucy: We have all those things here and we have craziness too. Larry: That's true, that's true. Christina: I believe that. Lucy: Totally crazy. You mentioned the work‑life balance and that's actually our next question around. How do you then sort of in some sense blend your personal and professional lives? Because we all have something that we do outside, what we call "work." Right? Larry: Yeah. Christina: Again, it's sort of a horrible not answer, answer. But it also sort of depends. It depends on what stage of life you're in, it depends on how you need to balance those things to make it work. It depends on who else is involved in the room with you right? So with Quincy, I made the decision very early on that it was all I was going to do. I worked seven days a week at it. I didn't sing in a choir, I didn't run marathons, I didn't date, I didn't see my friends, I didn't really see my family. It was just all I did, seven days a week. All I could think about even when I was sleeping. It was the one I needed. At the beginning we were getting from a running start with no money. We had a very specific length of time before we were out of money so that was the runway we had, it was about eight months. It either had to work or it was over. At the end of those eight months, we did managed to raise a venture capital. We had some resources and we were able to hire some people and my co‑founder and I looked at each other and said "We have to have slightly more work‑life balance, or we're going to burn out." So now we're in a different stage in our company. We're able to say, "OK, now we're working six days a week. We'll take one day off every weekend." She was married so she tried to find time and space to make room for her husband. I decided to take up long distance running and I got to go back on audition for a choir, so I'd have something. We got eight months more into that and we were nearly to a point where either was going to work or we were going to have to shut down. In either case, killing ourselves wasn't going to make that difference. We said "OK, now we're going to work five and half days a week" and make a little bit more space for ourselves. In the case of per jobs done at MNH, it's a very different culture here. It's a museum, it's a non‑profit. We have hours that the museum are open, we have hours that the education programs happen. A lot of the partners that I meet to interact with in order to build this program, they're not going to be on their email at four in the morning on a Sunday. There's no point in me being on email at four in the morning on a Sunday. There's a lot more space for me to have a work‑life balance here because the other partners in the room, insists on it. It's the culture that we have here. It can be frustrating sometimes. It can feel a little bit slow sometimes and that's the pay off, right? The nice thing is, I'm not competing with other companies to be the first to market with our product. It's a different type of a start‑up and a different type of an organization. Larry: Wow, that's really something. One of the things I would like to ask is, what mountain are you going to climb next but I'm... [laughter] Christina: Well I can tell you, I leave in two days. I'm going to Nepal to go to average base camp. Lucy: Oh my gosh. Wow, be careful. Larry: Oh wow. Christina: Thank you. Larry: Yeah, you have a great time. Yes. [crosstalk] Larry: Well, you've already been through a great deal, you achieved a lot. What's up for your next? Christina: I mean, I'm excited for project STEM. This could be a program that isn't just something we run at the American Museum of National History. But something that other museums and other informal learning areas might be able to adapt. One thing that we're already seeing in our early development here, is that by teaching coding in computer science through the lens of a subject that girls and minorities already know and are familiar with. We're getting a much higher sort of response rate to the applications and to the programs than we were expecting because if you look at biology, they don't have the gender gap that we have in computer science. Or at least not nearly as much, and certainly in a place like museum where a lot of these kids have been going on school trips since they were in kindergarten. It's a place that they recognize and that they feel comfortable in. We're not having this "Oh I'm not sure I fit in there" piece. For me, the big question that I wanted to ask with this program and I hope that will be able to publish the results and help others think about replicating is, can we teach computer science a lot like we teach English? Which is a tool to help you do other things. If the thing that you're interested in is biology or if it's fashion, or if it's art, let me teach you different languages and process season. Algorithms and things that it might be interesting tools for you to do that other thing that you care a lot about. We might be able to really see this change in this diversity of the talent that's interested in it. This is my big focus, what's got this grand for five years and I intend to take the most of it. But I really want to see this as something that scales beyond just MNH and beyond just New York City. As a way to think about computer science and STEM education. Or populations that aren't necessarily just attracted to the idea of "Let me learn to code, cause I want to learn to code." Lucy: Amen to that. If NCWIT can help you, we are here. Christina: Excellent. Lucy: We are absolutely here. Larry: Wow I'll tell you, that's a fact. We'll have your interview course up on our home page at w3w3.com, in our blog, in our podcast directory, in our newsletter. Most of all, go to ncwit.org and you'll see some fantastic information and stories. Lucy: Well, thank you Christina, very much of just great advice. We always love these interviews. We ask the same questions to everybody and they're all different, the answers of course. Very interesting, thank you very much. Christina: That's awesome. Thank you, I was so happy to be here. This is such a great initials of you guys have. Lucy: Thank you very much. Larry: Christina, I'm glad you didn't ask me to carry your bag on a couple of days so... [laughter] Lucy: Well, thanks very much. We're sort of done with the interview now. But I should just reinforce that offer to help, in any way, NCWIT got a lot of research and practice. What you're doing with bridge up STEM is very much in our will house in terms of interest. Larry: Yes. Christina: Excellent. I will absolutely follow up with you guys on that. Lucy: Yeah. We have a K12 alliance and all the organizations are working together in different things. There's no membership fees for non‑profits so could be some natural affinities there. Christina: Excellent. I will look into that more when I'm back from Nepal. Series: Entrepreneurial HeroesInterviewee: Christina WallaceInterview Summary: Christina Wallace is the founding director of Bridge Up: STEM which is a new educational initiative at the American Museum of Natural History focused on introducing girls and minorities to computer science. Before her current role at BridgeUp: STEM, Christina was a Vice President at Startup Institute, the Founder and CEO of venture-backed e-commerce brand Quincy Apparel, a management consultant with the Boston Consulting Group, and an arts manager at the Metropolitan Opera. "I'm excited for project STEM," said Wallace about her program. "This could be a program that isn't just something we run at the American Museum of National History. But something that other museums and other informal learning areas might be able to adapt. One thing that we're already seeing in our early development here, is that by teaching coding in computer science through the lens of a subject that girls and minorities already know and are familiar with." Release Date: March 22, 2015Interviewer(s): Lucy Sanders, Larry NelsonDuration: 27:52
This episode is about things to consider when choosing co-founders to go into business with. Topics covered include: Do you need co-founders? The advantages of choosing co-founders who are different to yourself (in background, skills, personality, and business networks) The importance of shared core values and purpose for co-founders Research by Noam Wasserman shows that teams made from former co-workers are the most stable. Teams made from former strangers are the second most stable of the three groups Wasserman analysed. Teams made from friends and family are the least stable. Show Notes: The Founder's Dilemmas by Noam Wasserman The Millionaire Next Door by Thomas Stanley The Wisdom of Crowds by James Surowiecki
Drawing on a decade of research and interviews with company founders, Harvard Business School Associate Professor Noam Wasserman explores many of the momentous early decisions and pitfalls faced by entrepreneurs and investors. Wasserman outlines paths and options for founders, with an emphasis on the frequently challenging people issues that can inhibit startup success.
Drawing on a decade of research and interviews with company founders, Harvard Business School Associate Professor Noam Wasserman explores many of the momentous early decisions and pitfalls faced by entrepreneurs and investors. Wasserman outlines paths and options for founders, with an emphasis on the frequently challenging people issues that can inhibit startup success.
Drawing on a decade of research and interviews with company founders, Harvard Business School Associate Professor Noam Wasserman explores many of the momentous early decisions and pitfalls faced by entrepreneurs and investors. Wasserman outlines paths and options for founders, with an emphasis on the frequently challenging people issues that can inhibit startup success.
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