Jules Pieri is Co-founder & CEO of The Grommet, a site that has launched more than 3,000 innovative consumer products since 2008. The company’s Citizen Commerce™ movement is reshaping how products are discovered, shared, and bought. She was named one of Fortune’s Most Powerful Women Entrepreneurs in 2013 and one of Goldman Sachs’ 100 Most Interesting Entrepreneurs in 2014. She is an Entrepreneur in Residence Emeritus at Harvard Business School and an investing partner at XFactor Ventures. Jules’ first book, “How We Make Stuff Now: Turn Ideas into Products That Build Successful Businesses,” was published by McGraw-Hill in April 2019.
Entrepreneurial Role Models:
Also mentioned
When business started difficulties overcame:
“the obvious one was the economic crisis… Plan A was that I will be able to take little income because my husband would be the primary breadwinner. We kind of traded that role a lot during the years and this was kind of his turn to be the steady Eddie and it didn’t work out, his work dried up, we didn’t see the economic crisis coming. So I knew I was taking on something hard, that was not a surprise but his lack of income was a big surprise so that was rough… I had two cofounders and I had to fire the third one on the day we launched. I think that’s the day I really became the CEO because once the going gets tough you are the one who has to do those things. That was hard”…[Listen for More]
Favourite Books:
Founders at Work: Stories of Startups’ Early Days (Recipes: a Problem-Solution Ap) Book by Jessica LivingstonFavourite Quote:
- “It’s better to get forgiveness than permission.” Grace Hopper
- “don’t worry about people stealing an idea. If it’s an original you will have to ram it down their throats” Howard Aiken
Recommended Online Resources:
LinkedIn – is a business and employment-oriented service that operates via websites and mobile apps. Founded on December 28, 2002, and launched on May 5, 2003, it is mainly used for professional networking, including employers posting jobs and job seekers posting their CVs.
Best Advice to Other Entrepreneurs:
“one is go big or go home… After that I would say more tactical things like name your company after your vision not your first product because to survive and succeed you will need a full line of products and you don’t want to be limited by the very first thing you do so name it correctly. I would say protect your intellectual property… I would say prototype the heck out of it. So you have an idea whether it’s a digital product or a physical product if you want to get some very rough low fidelity prototypes in front of potential customers as soon as possible, nothing fancy not CAD drawings, not 3D printed, like hardboard paper or really basic clickable digital prototypes so that iterate as many as possible ”…[Listen for More]
More About Jules Pieri:
Neil’s Quote at the Beginning:
“Oh yes, the past can hurt. But you can either run from it, or learn from it.” Rafiki, The Lion King
Other Quotes From the Chat with Jules Pieri:
- “there is a very big difference between working in a start-up versus starting one.”
- “One of the things that I didn’t understand when I was pitching this business in the early days was how important my own story was”
- “are you the person that other people feel, when you work with them, invested in your success because you have been invested in theirs”
- “you are known by the company you keep. But it is really true in business as well”
- “I have to take the advice that one of my investors told me is said Jules, ‘you have to be the eyes and ears of this business, you have to be out and about you have to be meeting people’”
- “you get one life so why don’t you like double down, triple down and how you are using your time. To me that matters”
- “I’ve always just punched ahead and never asked for permission. I’d rather apologise later if I offend somebody. I don’t like being told no so I avoid the possibility that I can be told no”
- “if you don’t have a network get one… You have to start now. You have to start to get in touch with the people who can help you because you can’t know everything, in fact you can know very little of what you need to know as an entrepreneur. Everybody who knows what you need to know is on LinkedIn”
- “Pros prototype like crazy. Prototypes are like truth serum and they reveal all and you should never fall in love with a product until strangers do”
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