Nick Such

Nick Such

Co-founder and CEO, BuildingLayer
nicksuch.com
Lexington, Kentucky, United States United states
Business owner
Member since December 06, 2009
VEQ: PM-TM-SE
Quote
CEO & indoor map-making evangelist at BuildingLayer. Co-founder of AwesomeTouch, BikeKY & the Kentucky Entrepreneur Hall of Fame. Product of the University of Kentucky, Awesome Inc and Betaspring. Quote_down
About Nick
Work/education
Activities
Company profile(s)
Following
I am a(n):

Entrepreneur

Companies I've founded or co-founded:

AwesomeTouch, BuildingLayer, Awesome Inc

Startups I worked for:

Awesome Inc

If you are an entrepreneur, why?

I want to change the world.

My favorite startups:

Occipital, SCVNGR, Twilio

What's most frustrating and rewarding about entrepreneurship/innovation?

Frustrating: battling the unknown unknowns
Rewarding: seeing other people using the stuff we make

What's the No. 1 mistake entrepreneurs make?

Trying to do everything themselves. Delegate.

What are the top three lessons you've learned as an entrepreneur?

1. Choose your team wisely
2. Release your product to your customers uncomfortably early
3. The playing field is actually level, there are no advantages. Go win.

Full bio

The short version:

  • Learned HTML in 4th grade, and ran my own lawnmowing business
  • Was the nerdy kid lugging a Palm Pilot around in middle school
  • Helped build a few websites for high school sports teams, local political candidates
  • Studied mechanical engineering in college, interned with GE and Toyota
  • Led a team of 40 students to raise $200k and design, build, "rayce" a solar-powered car (we placed 2nd my senior year)
  • Worked as a business research intern for a local high-tech venture fund
  • Convinced a few of my friends to build apps for large-format touch screens as a capstone design project
  • Found a few customers who wanted our stuff, so we started AwesomeTouch
  • Hospital saw our outdoor maps, asked if we could help their visitors not get lost.
  • Noticed lack of indoor map content
  • Accepted into startup accelerator, Betaspring
  • Started BuildingLayer