Founders at Work.pdf

138 Founders at Work
and that was a really good lesson for me—“I know you’re tired, I know you’re
working hard, but it’s not an excuse for putting out something that looks like a
startup.”
When Jeff came in, I’d been working hard for 8 months, and I was already a
little bit tired, and I didn’t think he would keep up. I didn’t know him all that
well, but he had twice as much energy as anyone. We started doing two redeyes
a week to New York for business. “OK, we have to go meet MTV tomorrow.
Red-eye out. Meeting. Come back that same day.” We did that for 3 to 4
months, and I just remember thinking when he walked in the door, that I
couldn’t work any harder. But we worked harder, faster, smarter. That was definitely
a step up in both effort and professionalism.
Being everywhere all the time made us look bigger than we were; “Oh yeah,
we’ll be in New York, we’ll be there.” I’d say, “Jeff, I have all these things on my
plate,” and he always responded, “No, we’re going.” It was someone who had
come from a big company who knew how to act like a big company, even
though behind the scenes it was startup.
Livingston: Was there ever a time when you wanted to quit?
Brady: No. There were a few days where I was really upset, but never close to
the point where I wanted to quit. It was too much fun. After the first 4 to
5 months, you could see what was coming; you knew you were on the wave;
things were only going to grow.
In the first couple of months there were a few days where I felt, “I left
school for this?” Because when I left school, I didn’t know that I was going to
graduate—I just left. I was 70 percent sure that I was going to get a degree, but
that 30 percent was still sitting out there. And my dad had paid for it, so the
thought of telling him I didn’t get it and having this company go belly-up was
like, “That’s a bad scenario.”
Livingston: Was your dad supportive?
Brady: Very. He knew Jerry from undergraduate days.
Livingston: Any advice you’d give to someone who was starting a startup?
Brady: Part of it is “know yourself.” Try to do as much thinking up front as to
what your breaking points are. One of the things I think I did well was that I
never spent any time thinking about quitting or any of these doomsday scenarios,
“Oh, God, what if this doesn’t happen.”
Before I joined, I knew where the line was, when I would quit, at what
point, and so when I was in the game, it never crossed my mind. I also knew
why I was involved, what motivated me, and I didn’t spend a lot of time perseverating
on that stuff. At the end of the day, it wasn’t going to get you anywhere.
It mattered, but only in an abstract way, compared to the day-to-day of getting
stuff done. Doing all that thinking all up front: why am I getting in, when do I
leave, if I leave then why am I doing it, what gets me up in the morning, what
could happen that could make me stop getting up in the morning? I’ve seen a
lot of people get so emotional because they start something on a whim; they are
doing this thinking while they are doing business, and, when things don’t go