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Boulder wasn't always the tech hub it is today.
Years ago, creating a successful tech company was not only more difficult, there was less support in the community and people to learn from and collaborate with. Jud Valeski, founder of Boulder-based Gnip, didn't find success in his first product, Medium, but he did use it as a springboard to cultivate tech relationships that would benefit him in the future.
After Medium's failure, Valeski partnered with Eric Marcoullier to build the ‘commercial-side of social’ — which is what we know today as Gnip, the social media data startup that was acquired by Twitter last year.
Thanks to sponsorship by Knoll, we hosted our Q1 Digital Leaders luncheon last week and were lucky enough to bring together influential founders to uncover the relationship, partnerships, milestones, and obstacles that played a significant part in the success of Gnip’s acquisition. We heard from three key players — Valeski, Doug Williams, former Director of Business Development for Twitter and investor Brad Feld.
1. It may take a decade to yield the profits of a partnership
You never know where a partnership may lead. Back in the 90s, Williams actually interviewed with Valeski (and was turned down) for a position in the early days of Gnip. Later, Williams began as an intern at Twitter back when the giant was just a tiny 30 person startup with no revenue.
"In the beginning in ’09, Twitter was only interested in user acquisitions not monetization," Williams said. "The vision for the company was divergent. But we convinced them to let us start with a few companies to test the commercial strategy.”
2. Success is built on enthusiasm and a vision (which is subject to change)
Crafting your product is one of the hardest parts of growing your business, but one of the most important. “We scrapped our first 6 month's product," Valeski said. "Unlike some founders, we were dedicated to a 12 month milestone. If we saw nothing, we would move on. The next 6 month's vision stuck and the model is essentially the Gnip product.”
“What do we want to be when we grow up?" Williams said of early Twitter. "We all had divergent ideas about what Twitter was to be. Are we a media company? Do we need to prioritize and position ourselves to promote our content for others to consume or are we a medium for others to spread their messages?"
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3. You never know what you’re going to do to keep the machine running
“All companies I've worked with have at least one near death experience," Feld said.
This was certainly true for Gnip. "We as founders had different views of Gnip’s growth and future," Valeski said. "Once we determined we were going to be B2B (and we were revenue generating) [Marcoullier] wasn’t excited about that vision so we almost shut down operations. I knew if the rest of us showed up the next morning then we’d have a business. And we did, and we all shook hands. It was a rebirth of the company.”
4. When you land an influential investor, it can propel self-confidence for what's possible
Feld was more than an investor for Gnip, he was an advocate who helped to forge relationships, ideas, and ultimately helped Valeski get to various stages of the company.
5. That next level/growth stage may not be something the initial founders can do
"There's that initial moment when you don’t know how to drive the boat,” Valeski said.
Gnip began recruiting CEOs with the experience they needed to scale, but were worried about the cultural hit their organization might take. “We had to shield everyone from the cultural shift. We knew once we brought a new CEO in, it was going to be different.”
6. Move when the acquisition feels right
“We were all comfortable with the idea of the acquisition as a good thing and right path,” Valeski said. “We knew we had reached the moment of max value and were were at the point where we could remove a long vision from our strategy.”
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