Learn From Proven Entrepreneurs

Greg Tseng’s lack of focus started with a huge success. Even though he and his co-founder worked on CrushLink part time, they built the crush discovery site into a $2+ million cash cow. Since it didn’t take much time to build one profitable company, they thought, why not incubate multiple companies and multiply their success?

This is the story of why that approach didn’t work. And why focusing on just one company helped them build Tagged into a profitable, 100 million member social network.

This is the story of Concur, a company that was birthed in Rajeev Singh’s apartment. You’ll see him hold up the first product that he and his co-founders created, a shrink-wrapped box of software that helped businesspeople keep track of their expenses.

How could such a simple start lead to a company that’s worth about $3 billion on the public market today? Listen to the interview to hear Rajeev tell you his story.

François Arbour and his father thought it would be easy.

They got permission from musicians to sell royalty free access to their music. All they had to do was build a web site, buy some ads and the orders would come rolling in, right? So they launched Premiumbeat.com. And they waited. And they…

This is the final interview of the three in-person interviews from Mixergy’s big event at South by Southwest.

This is the second of three in-person interviews from Mixergy’s big event at South by Southwest.

If you meet Matt Tanase in person, ask him to show you the wallpaper photo on his phone. It’ll probably be of a…

This is one of three interviews from Mixergy’s big event at South by Southwest.

How do you take an idea that no one’s ever heard of before and make it into a business with 750,000 members?

I invited Jennifer Hyman & Jennifer Fleiss of Rent The Runway to Mixergy so we could learn they did it. Their innovative idea was to create a site that lets its members rent dresses and accessories at a fraction of the price of purchasing them. This is the story of how they tested, built and grew their vision.

How do you convert your product vision into an actual product?

Joining me for this program to help answer that question I invited Jess Pugsle of Fusionapps, because he’s the guy I call up when I’m trying to figure out how to use software to solve my audience’s problems.

This is the place where I usually write an intro to help you figure out if you should invest an hour and listen to the interview I recorded for you, but I can’t really put into text why this is such a good interview.

Yes, as…

The TechStars accelerator program is big with my audience because it helps launch dozens of smart startups every year.

I did this interview to learn about David Tisch, the man who brought TechStars to New York and is the local Managing Director of the program. In this interview you’ll hear about his entrepreneurial background (including a good example of why entrepreneurs shouldn’t allow themselves to be trapped inside big companies) and how he makes his investment decisions.

Imagine leaving your country to go to school and suddenly there’s a revolution that prevents you from going back home. How would you rebuild your life?

That’s what happened to Saeed Amidi after the Iranian revolution. This is the story of how he hustled and built himself up, and how he went on to help hundreds of tech startups grow, including PayPal, which leased office space from him and became one of his first angel investments.