Sean Whiteley has been in the tech business since the internet was first taking off back in the 1990s. In fact, he was early enough to the party to snag the [email protected] email address. But a lot has changed since those early days, and Sean has been through plenty of highs and lows along the way. He’s loved his time in Silicon Valley, but he recognizes that life in the Bay Area isn’t all that the world has to offer.

“Don't get too stuck here in Silicon Valley,” Sean cautions. “There's a lot of greatness and I love it here. I love the dynamic here where risk is rewarded and arguing is okay, it's a good thing, it's not personal. You're just trying to come up with a better solution. I identify with a lot of the qualities that are here, but I also realize that this is not representative of most of the world.”

Still, though, Silicon Valley is where Sean built his family and founded his current business, Qualified.com, which is making its mark in the new and emerging field of conversational marketing applications. Qualified — which is an app built to alert your sales team when qualified leads are visiting your site — offers a full stack of meeting tools that you can use to engage your customer be it through chat, phone calls or some other conversational interface. 

On this episode of Mission Daily, Sean talks about his life in the Valley, the importance of finding the right business partner and building the right culture, the stages of building success and the role luck plays into it all.

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