Today's Entrepreneur: Sam Hayes

No. 1 mistake: Losing sight of the customer's needs

Vator’s community is the home to entrepreneurs who embrace their passion and follow their dreams.

Our newly-designed 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.

Today's Entrepreneur is Sam Hayes, Co-Founder & EVP, SharesPost.

Sam is a thought leadership and is good at marketing management, fund raising.

(Note: Sam will be one of the speakers at Venture Shift, an evening event gathering top VCs, angels and entrepreneurs to discuss the changing dynamics in venture capital. Register here.)

You are a(n): Vator.TV early adopter

Name companies you've founded or co-founded:
SharesPost

Name companies you've invested in:
TrueCar, ListSpinner, Zig, Infralex

Name startups you worked for:
Wine.com/WineShopper, Zerotree, Outlink

If you are an entrepreneur, why?
Paraphrasing Drucker: Customer is my inspiration (and keeps me busy).

List your favorite startups:
Sun (circa 1984), AOL (Circa 1994), Amazon (Circa 1998), SharesPost (Circa 2011)

What's most frustrating and rewarding about entrepreneurship/innovation?
Delighting the customer (in a profitable way).

What's the No. 1 mistake entrepreneurs make?
Losing sight of the customer's needs

What are the top three lessons you've learned as an entrepreneur?
Be humble. Be forward-looking. Be focused. All at the same time!