Joel Milne is the CEO of RepairSmith, which provides mobile car repair and maintenance services. Joel is a serial entrepreneur who previously co/founded four venture-backed technology startups where he served as CEO, COO, and CTO and raised over $100M in venture financing. He is also an advisor to many California-based startups.
Entrepreneurial Role Models:
- Jack Dorsey co-founder and CEO of Twitter and Square
- Reed Hastings co-founder, chairman, and Co-chief executive officer (CEO) of Netflix
When business started difficulties overcame:
“the biggest difficulty I had to overcome was my ego. I say that because first of all when I started my business, I was in my early twenties so this is going way back. I was a pretty smart kid, I skipped three grades in middle school and high school, I went to college at 16, I certainly thought and had been told that I was a pretty smart guy. And so in a way that was good and in a way it was also bad because start-ups are all about failure and as somebody who had overachieved for their entire life learning to deal with failure and learning to trust other people and not micromanage them and not having it being the Joel show was my first big challenge and lesson in entrepreneurship. Of Being a good manager and not just saying I can do better than everyone else, I am the smartest guy in the room. And that was I think my biggest personal challenge ”…[Listen for More]
Favourite Books:
Ship of Gold in the Deep Blue Sea: The History and Discovery of the World’s Richest Shipwreck Book by Gary KinderFavourite Quote:
“Human beings have an innate inner drive to be autonomous, self-determined, and connected to one another. And when that drive is liberated, people achieve more and live richer lives.” Daniel H. Pink
Recommended Online Resources:
Medium – where words matter. Medium deliver’s the best stories and ideas on the topics you care about most straight to your homepage, app, or inbox.
Best Advice to Other Entrepreneurs:
“remember that start-ups are just a bunch of people doing things, doing something hard together. And you may think you got the best idea or you are the best at something but it’s really just a handful of people working together to solve the problem. And so, thinking hard about who those people are and how you motivate them will be a major driver in your success or failure much more than your individual skills”…[Listen for More]
More About Joel Milne:
Neil’s Quote at the Beginning:
“You don’t have to be a genius or a visionary or even a college graduate to be successful. You just need a framework and a dream.” Michael Dell
Other Quotes From the Chat with Joel Milne:
- “I think the journey of the ego and the team and the delegation word of shortcutted my curve greatly. Spending the time thinking about the people you are going on the journey with often gets overlooked”
- “it’s very rare that the original team makes it to the finish line. First of all, it’s very rare that any company makes it to the finish line. But if you look at the ones that make it to the finish line, that say go public or have great success usually there is a forgotten founder, a fired founder whose upset, there has been multiple turmoil whether you look from Facebook to Microsoft to any of them. Most of the time there’s been turmoil. So thinking about who you want to go on the journey with, how they complement you and how you will be able to make it the distance together and that you can trust them and let them grow in the company would have saved me a lot of time”
- “for me the secrets to success have been pursuing a big idea that you enjoy tackling every day doing it with a great team and maintaining some semblance of happiness in your life. Which for me as I’ve grown over it’s changed and I’ve learned and I’ve shifted priorities. But it’s some work life balance and solid relationships outside of my career allows me to come to work every day and be excited about what I do”
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