We all know that Quirky is la crème de la crème of start-up creamy goodness, but there are plenty of other people out there who’ve nailed the start up. The beloved BBC is currently showing a very interesting set of interviews with successful entrepreneurs, exploring what makes these people tick, how they did it and how you can do it too! Check it out here.
Last Sunday, I spent the morning doing the most luxurious, relaxing thing I can think of. I sat in a sunny cafe in the West Village, sipped on a cappuccino, and read the Sunday New York Times.
Two headlines caught my eye:
TECHNOLOGY
New York Isn’t Silicon Valley. That’s Why They Like It.
A decade after the dot-com bust, the Internet economy in New York is springing back to life.
and
GENERATION B
Experienced Hands, Still Valued
A company that is booming through the Great Recession takes the value of baby boomers seriously.
I read these articles, thanking my lucky stars that I’m working in a young, energetic start-up environment like Quirky… in a city like New York.
One of my passions is building companies. I’ve been involved in three start-ups over the past 15 years. One was successful and two were not. My definition of success doesn’t mean the company sold for a lot of money. Rather, I define success as building an incredible culture of smart, hungry, and humble employees all trying to build something extraordinary, and having customers who love us. If you can do those two things, really great things happen. That’s the kind of success I want to help recreate at Quirky.
I met Ben through a mutual friend in September. Over the next couple of months I got to know Ben and Quirky much better. Ben is an incredibly gifted person: bright, creative, and driven to see his dream of social product development become reality. I also got to take a hard look at the team and the business model. It’s innovative and disruptive. I fell for it completely. Ben also got to know me and my philosophies for building a company. In November, Ben asked me to get involved with Quirky in a big way. So I did. I made a significant investment and agreed to make Quirky my top business priority. My role is as a co-pilot to Ben, to help advise and coach him and the team.
It won’t be easy. No start-up is. But Quirky especially will take incredibly hard work, imagination, a willingness to take risks, and an incredible team of employees and community members. We’re trying to do something absolutely profound here. We’re trying to bring the dreams of inventors from all over the world to life. We’re trying to build a consumer brand from scratch. We’re competing in many different consumer product categories against many entrenched companies. We’re sharing rewards with thousands of contributors from around the world. We’re building an entirely new kind of consumer products company. We need to build robust capacities in design, manufacturing, and distribution. We need to build a great team. And we need to manage cash flow. Like I said, this won’t be easy.
This works if we do it together. We’re committed to building an extraordinary team at Quirky: a team of employees who are smart, energetic, driven, great teammates, and passionate about building something great. But that won’t be enough. We need your participation. We’re going to let you inside the Quirky business in a way that I don’t think has ever been done by another company. You’ve begun to see it: the forum and our blog posts. That’s just the beginning. We promise to be honest and fully transparent with the community. And in return we’ll ask for your participation and your bright ideas to help us navigate the difficult choices we’ll face as we grow. I’ll be writing regularly with progress, the difficult issues we’re facing, and thoughts on areas I find fundamental to our success. Tell me exactly what you think. Be direct. We need everyone’s best thinking.
Together, we can do something really extraordinary here. I’m honored and humbled to be a part of it.
– Mitch
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