Today’s entrepreneur is Matthew Kropp, co-founder and CEO of FR8Star. FR8Star.com is a booking and dispatch platform for carriers and shippers moving heavy haul and open deck loads.We have streamlined the entire booking and dispatch process from end-to-end.
Matthew is passionate about digital innovation and building high-performing teams. He spent the first 10 years of career as entrepreneur building digital businesses in Internet 1.0 including Transplant Connect, the leading EMR for organ and tissue donation.
The following ten years Matthew honed people development and strategy skills at the Boston Consulting Group, focused on the Trucking and Technology sectors and the intersection of the two, as well as B2B pricing.
Matthew founded and now CEO of trucking logistics software startup, FR8Star.com in 2015.
He received his MBA from The Wharton School and has a B.S. degree in Aerospace Engineering from UCLA.
Matthew is interested in mountain biking, backcountry skiing and performing science experiments with his two boys, including launching a GoPro VR rig to the edge of space.
Transplant Connect is the leading electronic medical record for the organ and tissue donation industry – 70% of organs donated in the US are managed through our system.
I want to invent something cool.
Particle, IFTTT, Serverless, Amazon (hey I was building web applications in 1995 – they will forever be a startup to me)
There is nothing more exhilarating than conceiving of the world changed by your idea and then walking the path to that world from today. Ideas are the power behind all forward motion in society and entrepreneurs are the craftsman for ideas. Frustration is the time it takes to walk that path.
Launching too late is death. Since no product survives first contact with the customer, get that contact as fast as possible. You can see the end of the path – what the world looks like with your idea fully realized. But what you can’t see is how others react to your idea. That is only visible once your idea is out in the market. The sooner you can get contact with the customer, the sooner you realize that your mental model for the world is wrong. Don’t despair! Your vision is still right – and you now know more about how to make it viable in the real world. But if you don’t get your first idea out to the market quickly, you will be stuck living in your initial model of the world.
1. Launch early and often – our motto: Blow things up (and ask forgiveness later)
2. Focus on getting the best talent and building a positive and distinctive culture
3. Crack the whip and be patient – Making progress requires relentless pushing while also realizing that progress takes time
