Keith Kitani

My favorite startups are those that fundamentally change the way we do things. Think of Amazon, changing the way we shop, Netflix, changing the movie industry, Uber, changing the taxi industry, Airbnb, changing the hotel industry, etc. I think that’s the power of startups, the ability and perseverance to completely change the way things currently work, usually in the face of tremendous adversity.

This is my second company. I first started Presedia, which we sold to Adobe/Macromedia and it then became Adobe Connect. After a great experience building that business, I decided I wanted to do it again. Although I built software products in conferencing, collaboration and learning, I still felt that the way employers communicate with employees was broken. And yet, employee communication was critical to connecting companies and their employees across almost every program from culture and strategy to benefits and compensation. I felt there was a huge opportunity to create an employee communications platform that would serve today's diverse, dispersed and digitally connected workforce.

I’m a product person, so the most rewarding part of entrepreneurship is taking an idea from a whiteboard and having it launch in the market (and work!). And the journey to get there with your team, that team success, it doesn’t get better than that. There are many frustrations along the way, though. I would say the number one thing is it always takes longer and costs more than what you had planned. You always have problems as you build a company, they just change and evolve as you grow.

From my experience, the No. 1 mistake is not adapting quickly as markets evolve. Startups need to evolve since it’s impossible to predict everything, including customers, competitors, and technologies. The pace of change is accelerating, so entrepreneurs need to continue to adapt and evolve.

1) Building the right team for the business you’re in is critical to success.

2) Culture is how employees act and behave — not what the CEO and executive teams say it is.

3) Change is the only constant.

It’s interesting…. When I was a kid, my father owned his own furniture store and I used to think, “It’s cool to be the boss." As I grew up, I enjoyed finding new problems and building products to solve those problems. Combine that with being surrounded by entrepreneurs — from friends and colleagues in Silicon Valley to my wife — and my path became clear.

As Co-founder and CEO of GuideSpark, the leader in employee communication, I work with a team of talented experts who are revolutionizing how companies communicate with their employees. GuideSpark empowers HR teams with software and content that both engage and activate employees for better business outcomes. Our mission is to make life at work better.

I’ve been running SaaS businesses focused on eLearning and communication since 1999, when I-cofounded Presedia (a rapid eLearning company) which was subsequently sold to Macromedia. At Macromedia I was responsible for the Breeze (now Adobe Connect) and Flash Media Server product lines, growing the businesses to over $50M annually. When Macromedia was acquired by Adobe, I was responsible for starting, building and managing the majority of Adobe’s initial SaaS businesses.