Zach Supalla is the co-founder and CEO of Particle, a venture-backed startup that’s making it easier to build internet-connected hardware. Particle is the most widely-used IoT platform, with 8,500 companies and 140,000 developers building products with Particle.
Entrepreneurial Role Models:
- Other entrepreneurs in San Francisco Bay Area
- Ben Horowitz
When business started difficulties overcame:
“The first barrier I found to starting a business was the belief of those around me that I wasn’t serious about it…it felt at the time like I had a perception gap to overcome about who I was and whether I was really an entrepreneur”…[Listen for More]
Favourite Books:
Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us Book by Daniel H. PinkFavourite Quote:
“the way to fly is to trip and miss the ground” – Paraphrase of what The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy has to say on the subject of flying
Full version
“There is an art, or, rather, a knack to flying. The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss. Pick a nice day and try it. All it requires is simply the ability to throw yourself forward with all your weight, and the willingness not to mind that it’s going to hurt.That is, it’s going to hurt if you fail to miss the ground. Most people fall to miss the ground, and if they are really trying properly, the likelihood is that they will fail to miss it fairly hard. Clearly, it is the second part, the missing, which presents the difficulties.
One problem is that you have to miss the ground accidentally. It’s no good deliberately intending to miss the ground because you won’t. You have to have you attention suddenly distracted by something else when you’re halfway there, so that you are no longer thinking about falling, or about the ground, or about how much it’s going to hurt if you fail to miss it.
It is notoriously difficult to prize your attention away from these three things during the split second you have at your disposal. Hence most people’s failure, and their eventual disillusionment with this exhilarating and spectacular sport. If, however, you are lucky enough to have your attention momentarily distracted at the crucial moment by, say, a gorgeous pair of legs (tentacles, pseudopodia, according to phyllum and/or personal inclination) or a bomb going off in your vicinity, or by suddenly spotting an extremely rare species of beetle crawling along a nearby twig, then in your astonishment you will miss the ground completely and remain bobbing just a few inches above it in what might seem to be a slightly foolish manner. This is a moment for superb and delicate concentration.
Bob and float, bob and float. Ignore all considerations of your own weight and simply let yourself waft higher. Do not listen to what anybody says to you at this point because they are unlikely to say anything helpful. They are most likely to say something along the lines of “Good God, you can’t possibly be flying!”
It is vitally important not to believe them or they will suddenly be right.
Waft higher and higher. Try a few swoops, gentle ones at first, then drift above the treetops breathing regularly.
DO NOT WAVE AT ANYBODY.”
“the way to build a company is to not die for a period of time.”
“Success is a continued lack of failure”
Recommended Online Resources:
- Hacker News – is a social news website focusing on computer science and entrepreneurship. It is run by Paul Graham’s investment fund and startup incubator, Y Combinator. In general, content that can be submitted is defined as “anything that gratifies one’s intellectual curiosity”
- Product Hunt – is a curation of the best new products, every day Discover the latest mobile apps, websites, and technology products that everyone s talking about
Best Advice to Other Entrepreneurs:
“I think the most important thing is to be resilient. First of all get started. There is a lot of folks who would like to be entrepreneurs and the thing that is keeping them from doing it is that there are always other things to do that are more pressing than actually start your company… We all have an opportunity to put ourselves in the circumstances where entrepreneurship is possible. And at the end of the day you don’t do that then you will never get there. You have to just take a leap and do it. Then when you have done that the journey of entrepreneurship is a rollercoaster and there are incredible days and there are terrible days. And every terrible day is a great day to quit. And the best way to not get end of the journey that you are shooting for is to quit somewhere along the way. So I think being resilient and building a support network so that you can make it through the hardest days, and that there are people around you and behind you who are egging you on so that on those hardest days you decide to keep going – think that is the most important thing that separates successful entrepreneurs from those who aren’t able to make it”…[Listen for More]
More About Zach Supalla:
Neil’s Quote at the Beginning:
“Hey, I don’t have all the answers. In life, to be honest, I’ve failed as much as I’ve succeeded. But I love my wife. I love my life. And I wish you, my kind of successes.” Jerry Maguire Movie
Other Quotes From the Chat with Zach Supalla:
- “the journey of an entrepreneur is mostly just surviving the bad times and figuring out how to make sure that on this roller coaster ride that is building a company that you survive when things are bad”
- “it’s helpful to know and understand that most entrepreneurs go through a lot of tough times before things get good or even intermixed with the good”
- “One of the nice things about entrepreneurship is nobody can tell you what to do or what not to do it’s really whether or not you do it”
- “There were three of us who left my business school programme to pursue start-ups full-time. And all three businesses are still active, all three have raised a decent amount of venture capital, all three are growing. And so the only difference between the three of us and the other five hundred and ninety seven was just whether or not we actually went to do it”
- “ I felt like I had a bit of a ticking clock at the time that I knew it was going to be hard to try and start a company but I knew it would only get harder as I had more life expectations, as I got deeper into my relationship with my wife and eventually had kids I knew that would just create more things that will make it hard to get through the tough times that are starting a company from scratch. And so I felt if I didn’t do it then would they ever really get to”
- “I think I’ve made every mistake you can make at this point at least once”
- “ I think that as a CEO, as a founder, the majority of my job is to explain to people what we are doing”
- “Starting a company is a learning experience. And it’s not so much about knowing the answers to the questions that you will be faced as you build the business but recognising that it’s okay to learn and make mistakes along the way and it’s just part of the ride”
- “the secret to success in entrepreneurship is to not die and keep not dying for a very long time until you eventually find yourself having been successful. So it is really about surviving the hardest moments.”
- “building a company is a rollercoaster ride”
- “every successful start-up has a story about that time when they almost didn’t make it”
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