Today's Entrepreneur: Brooks Halladay

Kristin Karaoglu · November 4, 2011 · Short URL: https://vator.tv/n/2122

No. 1 mistake: Spending too much time on one thing

Today's Entrepreneur is Brooks Halladay, the founder and the CEO of TropicMint. According to his VEQ Brooks is a thought leader good at team motivation and technology design.

Vator’s community is the home to entrepreneurs who embrace their passion and follow their dreams. Our profiles allow members to express themselves by sharing their interests, lessons learned, as well as bits and pieces of their roller-coaster journey.

These profiles give entrepreneurs an opportunity to showcase themselves and tell their story. So if you are an entrepreneur, a serial entrepreneur, or even an aspiring entrepreneur, we'd like to hear from you.

I am a(n):

Entrepreneur

If you are an entrepreneur, why?

I want to invent something cool.

My favorite startups:

Gilt, Twitter, Facebook, LivingSocial, Tumblr, Instagram, Groupon, Zynga

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

Focusing on just one idea or direction is tough. I love creating something and seeing people use it. I took my family to a Christmas party last year, and the NFL playoffs were on tv... the commentators paused from the game after the kickoff, and announced the launch of the Fox Sports app. They presented it on screen in front of my family and friends. It was a neat moment.

What's the No. 1 mistake entrepreneurs make?

Spending too much time on one thing before putting it out there for the public to accept or reject. I'm now a big fan of the lean startup method. Where there is extreme uncertainty it's best to start with a great idea, create that minimally viable product and get feedback on a constant basis as fast as possible. The old method where we'd spend 6 months, a year, or more designing and implementing something is going away.

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

1. Find help - you can't do it alone
2. Follow the lean startup method - build it as fast as possible
3. Network - you need friends to help share your new product/business, and then eventually you need investors

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Kristin Karaoglu

Woman of many skills: Database System Engineer; SplashX event producer; Author of Startup Teams

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Related Companies, Investors, and Entrepreneurs

TropicMint

Startup/Business

Joined Vator on September 26, 2011

TropicMint is an online site that features flash sales on designer goods, localized daily deals, and cruise and vacation packages with a resort/beach lifestyle focus. TropicMint takes a fun, expressive approach to this domain with creative and artistic energy to fuel our design process and product offerings. In the future, we may consider expanding into custom branded fashion and design.

Our closet competitors would include LivingSocial, Groupon, Gilt, ideeli, HauteLook, Fab, Vente-privee, One King's Lane, etc. Each of these companies are fantastic at what they do, but our approach and specific focus sets us apart. We want to establish a global appeal that can travel to fashion and art centers around the world. We would be a perfect fit in tropical destinations around the world in South America, Caribbean, California, Florida, Asia-Pacific, and the Mediterranean.

Being based in Las Vegas provides us access to almost 40 million tourists a year from around the world as well as close proximity to the Entertainment industry. This is the perfect spot to build a new brand, refine the platform, and then spread quickly to other key areas.