Jackson Gates

Co-founder and CEO of Sweep (acq. Affirm). Previously VP of BD and Corp Dev at Pandora. Former VC Associate/Analyst.

LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/jacksongates
Twitter: https://twitter.com/jacksongates
San Francisco, California, United States
Member since August 07, 2012

About

Education

2007 Stanford , MBA

2000 Georgetown , BS

I am a(n):

Entrepreneur

Companies I've founded or co-founded:

Sweep Inc.

Companies I work or worked for:

Edmodo, Pandora, Venrock, Swell, Vulcan Capital, Tenaya Capital, Sun Microsystems, Affirm

If you're an entrepreneur or corporate innovator, why?

I believe good teams can solve hard problems.

My favorite startups:

Wealthfront, TrunkClub, Bonobos

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

Same thing -- testing your courage and conviction.

What's the No. 1 mistake entrepreneurs/innovators make?

Giving up too soon.

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

1) Start with the mission first, not the idea.
2) Love your team more than your idea.
3) Job #1 of an entrepreneur is to never lose faith.
4) Job #2 is to listen to all of the great advice and then figure out what to take seriously and what to ignore.
5) Don't forget that your most important investor is your spouse.
6) You don't have to follow directions

Full bio

Jackson Gates is the CEO and co-founder of Sweep, a forward-looking mobile finance app that helps consumers get ahead of their bills, expenses and savings goals so they never have to budget again. Over the past 15+ years, Jackson has been involved in technology startups at all levels including CEO, founder, EIR, advisor, executive and investor. As an operator Jackson served as VP of Business Development at Pandora and VP of Business Development at Edmodo. As an investor, Jackson worked at Vulcan Capital and Tenaya Capital. And as an entrepreneur he is the co-founder of Sweep and spent time as an EIR at Venrock. He received his MBA from Stanford and his bachelors from Georgetown University.