52 Founders

In this episode you’ll learn:

-About Mitch’s early passion for rockets that gave him his first chance to make things people wanted to use.

-How watching Kevin’s mother pursue her own small businesses inspired him from a young age to build his own company (side note: a woman in the 90’s who taught herself how to build computers? Bad ass).

-How early leadership experiences led way to a career of helping set others up for success (that is their business after all).

-About the value of venture funding vs. bootstrapping in a business with network effects.

-Why persistence trumps all else, and how running marathons helped prepare Kevin for entrepreneurship.

-Why both founders think creating a good business where people actually want to work is much more important that external “success” factors.

Finally, we’ll end with some fun topics, like what book Kevin recommends and why they both want to interview the same founder (spoiler alert, it’s Jason Fried of Basecamp).

In this episode you’ll hear about:

-Early childhood inclinations towards learning how things are made (no surprise that toys like Legos and Kinex piqued his interest).

-How Startup Weekend changed the course of his career and led him to his cofounder.

-James’ innate salesmanship. Whether it was half of his lunch or his own drawings, James was selling even back in elementary school.

-Why his outgoing personality helps with hiring.

-How getting into Techstars made him take the leap to full time entrepreneurship.

-How continually challenging himself from a young age gave him the hustle he needed to be a founder.

Finally, we’ll end with a few quick fun questions and learn who James could interview if he had the chance (hint: it’s not who you’d expect).