Life after You Launch [Launch Talk]
In celebration of Launch Academy’s 5 year anniversary, we brought back some of our original startups to talk about life after you launch! Building a startup is no easy feat, it’s rollercoaster ride that will take you through high highs and low lows. Passion gets you through the hard patches of being an entrepreneur, but what about the rest of the journey? We heard from Launch Academy alumni & successful entrepreneurs as they shared their experiences and candid stories. The lively discussion was moderated by our very own Sam Chan, Launch Academy’s Program Manager.
Our panel of experts shared insights on:
- Raising money or self-funding your startup
- Bootstrapping to profitability
- Making their first million in revenue
- Growing from 0 to 45 employees
- Competing with 800lb gorillas
- International growth and customer support
- Raising millions of dollars in Silicon Valley and Vancouver
- Their biggest failures
- Transitioning from being an entrepreneur to a CEO
- Managing stress and exhaustion
Our amazing panel included the following successful Launch Academy alumni:
Alexandra Greenhill – Co-Founder & CEO of myBestHelper, the innovative tech company that helps people live life well. The company has received 22 awards and recognitions in three years. Alexandra has been a mentor and a judge in many Hackathons and Startup Weekends.
Greg Smith – Co-Founder & CEO of Thinkific. Greg is a lawyer, instructor and lifelong student who has taught thousands of students online and helped others create their own online courses. As a founder of Thinkific, Greg’s goal is to help create and deliver amazing eLearning experiences.
James Clift – Co-Founder & CEO of WorkStory, a company that builds technology that powers career success. Their flagship product is VisualCV, the leading online resume and portfolio creation website. VisualCV.com has helped over 1.5 million people in dozens of countries worldwide make a career move.
Jayesh Parmar – Co-Founder & CEO of Picatic. Jayesh is a serial entrepreneur with over 19 years of event industry experience. He started his first company in 1998 and has been building companies ever since. Jayesh is listed as one of the world’s top 10 Tech Entrepreneurs Disrupting The Event Industry and is the winner of SISO breakthrough event technology award.
Matt Smith – Co-Founder of Later.com, a visual content marketing platform that makes you great at visual marketing. You can aggregate, curate, schedule and optimize visual marketing campaigns across all visual social media networks and it’s used by over 400,000 people and some of the world’s most well-known brands including Redbull, Forbes, MTV, WSJ and Armani.
Thank you to the 5 panelists for your amazing insights and everyone for joining us! Check out this album on our Facebook Page for more photos of the event.
Want to join us at our next Launch Talk? Check out this page for upcoming events.
