You read about Gregg Brockway's lessons learned in my "Does an entrepreneur need an MBA?" series, now watch and listen to him elaborate more about the lessons he's learned. And, this entrepreneur has learned a lot - from a startup failure to taking a startup from the beginning all the way to a successful M&A exit.
What makes a great entrepreneur?
"There's three things to be successful," he said. "A differentiated vision... second, a great team, and a grim determination to power through." Importantly, entrepreneurs have to realize that the "entrepreneurship" game isn't an individual sport. "Talent wins games; team wins championships," said Gregg, quoting former basketball star Michael Jordan.
Gregg is a two-time entrepreneur, having founded Hotwire (sold to IAC for $650 million), and most-recently Tripit (raised $13 million in venture funding). Gregg became an entrepreneur after first having a stint as an investment banker. He felt constantly pulled to enter the operational side of a company, as opposed to just the advisory work that’s done as a banker.
While Gregg had a great success, and appears to be on his second, he did have a failure. This is often a right of passage for many great entrepreneurs.
Gregg joined a garage startup in the late 90's.
Unfortunately, or fortunately, that startup failed. "Ultimately, we lost all the money, including a decent chunk of my own," he said.
What are Gregg's biggest lessons from that failure? In a nutshell: The importance of leadership; the importance of a differentiated product and not a me-too product in a crowded space. And, the importance of creating options (something Kevin Hartz, CEO and co-founder of Eventbrite said in his Lessons Learned segment). An entrepreneur needs to focus on "a lof of different ways to win," he said. One way to do that is to not be totally dependent on one customer or partner.
Founder and CEO of Vator, a media and research firm for entrepreneurs and investors; Managing Director of Vator Health Fund; Co-Founder of Invent Health; Author and award-winning journalist.
All author postsHow the Legacy of Westward Expansion Continues to Inspire Small Business Owners
Read more...
Lucinda Stawel
Top three lessons learned: Stay Humble; Don't Quit; Show Up
Read more...
Sponsored Story
Lucinda Stawel
Startup/Business
Joined Vator on
About TripIt
TripIt, the trip management company, helps people organize and share their travel plans no matter where they book. Travelers simply forward their travel confirmation emails from over 1,000 sites to plans@tripit.com. TripIt automatically creates a master itinerary that combines all their travel plans plus weather, maps, restaurants and more.
With TripIt it’s easy to share and collaborate on trips with friends and colleagues in social networks. TripIt itineraries can be accessed via online, mobile device, free Android, BlackBerry and iPhone apps, personal calendars and social networking sites including the free LinkedIn travel app.
TripIt is an open itinerary platform that works with a growing eco-system of travel and mobile partners. The new TripIt Pro premium service for frequent travelers automatically monitors travel itineraries, providing mobile alerts, alternate flight options, frequent traveler point tracking and automated trip sharing.
TripIt Founders
TripIt was founded in San Francisco in October 2006 and launched in September 2007. The company has raised $13.1 million from investors that include O’Reilly AlphaTech Ventures (OATV) and Azure Capital Partners. The TripIt co-founders are an experienced team of travel and technology executives:
Gregg Brockway, President – Former president of Classic Vacations (an Expedia company), and co-founder and chief product officer at Hotwire
Scott Hintz, VP Business Development– Former senior vice president of product at Hotwire, and strategy consultant at Accenture.
Andrew Denmark, VP Engineering – Former engineering director at Opsware, and chief technology officer at CityRealty.com.
TripIt Technology
At the heart of TripIt is the Itinerator, which automatically creates structured trip itineraries from the unstructured data in travel confirmation emails. It also aggregates related data from other websites to provide useful travel information, like weather, maps and directions. The Itinerator is an open technology platform that works with all major travel websites and all major email systems. TripIt's goal is to provide one place for all travel information, accessible whenever travelers need it.
TripIt has also been architected for social networking and includes many options for trip sharing and collaboration. Travelers can share trips with people inside and outside their TripIt Network, and post plans on social networks like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. Closeness alerts tell travleers when their trips overlap with other people in their TripIt network. TripIt Company Groups tracks and shares the dates and locations of employee business travel, and TripIt for Google Apps has Company Groups and a several Google gadgets to help organizations and individual travelers manage their business trips.
TripIt has an open API that powers My Travel on LinkedIn and TripIt for Facebook Connect. Additionally, hundreds of developers use the API to intergrate TripIt with their web services and mobile apps.
Joined Vator on
Gregg is a serial entrepreneur, angel investor and travel industry survivor. Co-founder of two successful companies, TripIt and Hotwire, Gregg has failed a couple times too.
