Scott Button became a first-time entrepreneur when he founded Unruly in 2006. He’s since done a pretty good job at his first go at it. Unruly just raised $25 million in venture financing in January, thanks to revenue that tripled last year. Here’s some lessons he’s learned as a start-up founder for the last six years.
Here’s some highlights (slightly edited):
– You’re always trying to run as fast as you can but you can’t run fast enough. Be sure to get people around you who can run fast, deal with change and deal with chaos. For your team and partners, it shouldn’t be about the money, but about the impact you want to have on the world. Success doesn’t come to you if you can’t enjoy the journey and be with people who have the same passion and ambition.
– Culture becomes extremely important. Be sure you can articulate that.
– The idea of the pivot and testing assumptions and changing is something we feel strongly in. We had a bunch of zigs and zags, about three or four bigger product iterations and 12 to 15 little project changes along the way. The successful model we have today was validated about 18 months after we started.
