738: Getting into the Beat of Business Success with Steven Dourmashkin Co-founder and Co-owner of Specdrums

Steven Dourmashkin is a recent mechanical engineering M.Eng. graduate from Cornell University, where he founded Specdrums. He then moved to Boulder, CO to begin a PhD in Aerospace Engineering at CU Boulder and continue to grow Specdrums. Steven is now taking time off from his PhD to focus on Specdrums full-time.

Entrepreneurial Role Models:

None specific

When business started difficulties overcame:

“I was still a student in college; I’ve always wanted to invent a product but I didn’t really get into entrepreneurship until I was a senior but that was my senior year I was basically really busy with school work, basically finishing up the year plus starting a business which is a ton of work, also I guess not having funding”…[Listen for More]

Favourite Books:

Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future book by Peter Thiel

Favourite Quote:

“Everyone is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.” Einstein

Recommended Online Resources:

• Slack – is where work flows It s where the people you need, the information you share, and the tools you use come together to get things done
• Streak – Simple Collaboration. Collaborate with a single click. Share contacts, email, files, and anything else needed to get the job done. Multipurpose. Manage your deals, support queue (and more) inside Gmail. Replace multiple external systems with Streak.

Best Advice to Other Entrepreneurs:

“Find something that you genuinely love doing, like something that it doesn’t really feel like work, you love working on it so it’s something that you want to do. I think a lot of people in my experience want to start a business so they can make a lot of money but I think what’s best is if you find something that you really believe in and something that you think is going to improve the world and improve the lives of others”…[Listen for More]

More About Steven Dourmashkin:

Specdrums

Neil’s Quote at the Beginning:

“The ability to ask the right question is more than half the battle of finding the answer.” Thomas J. Watson

Other Quotes From the Chat with Steven Dourmashkin:

• “One thing that really helped was I started spectrums basically through an accelerator program so this was a program at Cornell, it was a student business accelerator it’s called ELab, something like that is really valuable”
• “If someone’s in the wrong spot they’re going to feel like they’re not doing a good job”

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