Mara Lewis

Mara Lewis


Website: http://stopped.at
San Francisco, California, United States
Member since July 26, 2010
  • About
Education
2006 University of Colorado, Boulder , BS , Social Communication; Behavioral Psychology
I am a(n):

Entrepreneur

Companies I've founded or co-founded:
SpeedFeed Video Chat, stopped.at, FAQtv
If you're an entrepreneur or corporate innovator, why?

I want to change the world.

My favorite startups:

Pinterest, Airbnb, Foursquare, Dropbox

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

The hardest thing about entrepreneurship is that it's HARD. There is no stability, no guarantee, and no reward for doing the best you can. The more disruptive your scope of vision, the fewer roadmaps there are to guide you, and you're likely to fail a few times before you succeed. However, when your resilience and relentless determination finally wins out, there is no greater reward! Success in this industry is earned by gambling on yourself.

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

You can have the best startup in the world, but if people don't know about it, it doesn't matter. Founders can get so wrapped up in product dev that they forget to think about how they're going to generate awareness and get users. Having sharable content or a viral gamification component woven into your product is key to getting above the market noise. There's nothing worse than building an awesome product that never takes off, because no one knows about it.

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

1. Waiting too long to launch
2. Focusing on raising money (before you have traction)
3. Worrying about what your competitors are doing

Full bio

 

Mara is the co-founder and CEO of stopped.at - a gamified sharing platform that lets users 'check in' to websites, earn points, and unlock deals from online locations. Previously, Mara was the co-founder and CEO of SpeedFeed Live, the first 'roulette-style' video chat network on Facebook that allowed users to meet new people based on shared likes and interests. Mara specializes in referral-based marketing, loyalty reward programs, and social interaction development. She has directed the social media efforts behind brands like Mattel, Aveeno, Eddie Bauer, Bebe and Comcast, and is recognized for building some of the first viral marketing campaigns on Facebook.