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I grew up in as very small rural town called Masontown, Pennsylvania.
It's in Fayette County which is about, which is one
county South of Allegheny County, which is where Pittsburgh is found.
I was a country kid.
I would say, I'd actually probably say more rural.
Country is kind of I'd say, you know, rural Georgia or something like that.
We were just kind of, you know, small town folks.
To me, going to Pittsburgh,
which was about an hour north, was going to the big city.
I was intimidated by tall buildings, the the town I
grew up in had a six story building I think.
That was the biggest building we had in there.
and the other thing is I grew up ridiculously poor.
to give you an idea how poor, our kitchen table had three legs.
We pushed it in a corner to keep it up.
the types of jobs
we had in our town were coal mining
jobs i, so in other words if your parents.
Could get a job coal miner.
You'd probably make about 60 grand a year.
And you could live a really good life in Mason Town.
But if you didn't find either through cronyism, nepotism, favoritism,
a job in the coal mine, you basically didn't have anything.
So I grew up there with my mother and my sister.
my mother
suffered from a mental illness that was undiagnosed her entire life,
and we didn't find it out until after actually she passed away.
and we lived, and when I talk about the tough life that
we had it was something that I actually had, I hid from the
world until I got to the point that I felt like I
had succeeded enough that I could wear it as a badge of honor.
I was ashamed of it.
But today I wear it like a F'ing badge of honor.
Every single day.
because it, to me it reminds me of the perseverance
it takes in order for you to achieve anything in life.
So, you know, growing up I think
I had never thought about being an entrepreneur.
I didn't have any, I didn't think about really going to college either.
I just kind of thought about wanting to have food every single day.
I wanted to be able to eat.
and I knew that that required hard work.
I knew that required like my mother like, I
love her to death, but she wasn't a role model.
I, she motivated me to want to work really hard.
and I remember the day whenever I,
I didn't know it was entrepreneurialism, but I,
I remember the day whenever I knew that I wanted to control my own destiny.
A lot of entrepreneurs They're
not, they're kind of curious about what they,
what they're capable of doing on their own.
Like what's the pinnacle of my performance, where I can't rely on
somebody else to give me resources in order for me to be successful.
I have to do it myself.
And I never forget.
I was really, really hungry.
And I was in the house, and I was trying, I wanted a Little
Debbie snack cake, which I think they're
still $0.25, maybe $0.35, inflation or whatever right?
And and I remember having $0.15.
And I remember digging through my mom's purse.
Digging, looking underneath the refrigerator.
I remember looking in the couch.
And I could not find a stupid dime.
One dime.
And I remember it was the summertime, and I was walking outside.
And I was hungry, I was tired.
And I remember leaning back and lookin' up at the sun.
And realizing that here I was, I think
I was like, ten years old or something.
And I just wanted a dime.
Ten cents and that dime might as well have been 1,000 miles
away from me because I could not manifest a dime in my life.
Right then and there I saw the
importance of taking charge of you're own life.
So from that point basically you know let me tell you
a little bit about kind of the kind of student i was.
I was a really good student you know growing up.
why?
Because I like to go to school because you get free lunch.
[LAUGH]
also I was really interested in math.
I liked algebra, I liked anything that
involved kind of figuring out a problem.
I lovde problem solving.
And again at the time, you know you're
too young to know that that's what you like.
You're not, you're not forming phrases like.
I like problem solving, you're just thinking
like this is, this class is fun.
but there was one thing that I did better than anybody
throughout all 12 years of my K through 12 education.
I was the best artist in every school that I was in.
you know elementary school, junior high, high school I
was the best artist in our school hands down.
I love to draw.
Whenever I was really, really young, you know, we
couldn't afford paper, so I'd open up the cereal boxes
and I'm not trying to depress you guys, I'm actually
trying to tell you, this was like character building things.
So like, let's not like, like let's not, you know, go, you know, dig too
deep or whatever, I'm trying to, these are
character building things, that I am proud of.
and I would draw food, I would draw Snicker bars, I would draw
Kit Kats and so forth you know with my crayons and so forth.
I can, I can draw you exactly the way you look.
I could draw you identically the way you look right now.
For $100 each we can wait outside, you know make a little
quick extra money before we leave you.
And I, like I mentioned before, I love comics.
I wanted to draw comics.
and I loved Garfield.
I loved Jim Davis.
I used to go up to the library and I
would check out, you guys, the library, remember that place right?
Like Dewey Decimal System, all that stuff in there.
Again, I always
say I'm only 35.
I don't think I'm old but.
That critical point in life whenever I, you know,
not only that I transition off to a whole
new world Rochester, New York, college, I also transition
basically my, my the prism in which I viewed life.
You know, being able to see the entire world through the web.
But anyway back to comics.
So I used to go to the library.
I used to grab Garfield books and I would try to draw Garfield and
so forth.
It was really fun.
and I went through high school.
And I'm, I was a senior in high school.
And at that point I still wanted to basically be a cartoonist.
And, I had a great art teacher.
And I'm sorry not a great art t, I had
a great art teacher but I had a great guidance counselor.
Who saw that throughout school, my sister and I we were, we were really,
really good students.
Everybody kind of knew, they kind of knew our home situation.
but fundamentally we were always.
you know, straight, almost straight A, or straight A and B students.
and he pu, my, my guidance counselor,
I'll never forget his name, it was Mr.
Gillespy.
he pulled me into his office.
And this is, you know, just, just so you know, like one of the
most important things as a young person
is finding people who you trust their opinion.
To help you figure out what the next move is in your life.
Cause I fundamentally promise you right now, all of you are arrogant.
Trust me.
Everybody is arrogant because they always think
that they've figured a lot of things out.
The older you get, the more you realize how much you don't know.
>> And I thought I had life figured out.
I was going to be a cartoonist, you couldn't tell me anything.
I've, I have hair on my chin,
I'm a grown-*** man.
[LAUGH]
How can you talk to me like that, right?
but he pulled me in the office and he said, Donn look.
You're not going to make any money drawing.
You're not.
there's this thing called graphic design.
It's commercial art.
I, I didn't even know what that was.
He said you draw things on the computer and so forth.
You really should do that.
now one of those words in, in his statement, everything else was kind
of BS to me, but one word he said really stood out, computer.
But what I fell in love with was.
It was math.
I had loved math.
But suddenly now I could control it.
It was like I was taking algebra, and
I was able to actually apply it in programs.
So, you know, I was there was this fortunate
thing that I had in my life which was sports.
I was a jock.
I was a really, really good athlete.
But I had this dirty little secret that I didn't tell anybody.
Every morning in homeroom I snuck to the library to computer program.
Every free moment I had.
I almost stopped drawing.
I almost stopped being an artist.
I would sneak to the library to computer program.
at that point I had assumed that I was going to be a graphic designer.
and you know, I was taking art classes and so forth in school.
And I, there, I was a little bit disappointed
because there was no computer programming.
We were on the computer, but I was just like, finger painting.
I was like, doing t, 2D designs.
And Puttin' text in certain places.
but you know, after awhile when every
year classes tell you what you should be
doing, you know, you start to think okay this is going to be my career.
But I promise you this is the optimal time for you to
really set your trajectory and your destiny.
This is the time for you to start a business.
This is the time for you to To say, you
know what, I'm going to figure out a way that I
don't have to pay those school loans right now or I'm
going to figure out a way to, to start a business.
It doesn't seem like it.
It seems like, you know, you're suddenly going to be
getting the most responsibility you've ever had in your life, bills.
But this is your optimal time.
And I'm going to tell you how I didn't
do that.
Because I remember I was kind of thinking, I just want a job, I want
to make money, I want to be able to like never be hungry again.
I remember going off to college and like them
saying, you know, this is Gracie's Dining Hall where
we can go in there, we can eat all, and we can eat as much as we want.
That was like the greatest thing on Earth.
That's why I had to go to college, for me.
That's why I went to college, basically for that.
so I worked at a great design firm called
Agnew Moyer Smith, and there's two great guys there.
Reed Agnew and Don Moyer.
And they really did shape the person who I am today.
First thing that they did was They brought me in and they said there's
this whole new thing that we think there's a lot of business, it's the web.
Oh no, I sorry, back then they called it the worldwide web.
Right?
There was
no, it was the worldwide web.
They basically said to me if you want a
job here you're going to have to design websites.
and I said I want to keep my job so I'm going to figure it out.
And that's where I fell back in love with basically computer programming.
So kind, think about the things that you are passionate about when
you were a kid or things that you learned be passionate about.
Like don't give those things up, like don't give up the things
that you know, maybe you like to do, but you're not doing in your major.
Suddenly I was given this opportunity To computer
program again, just building websites and so forth.
And I kind of fell back in love with that.
and, you know, put me long story
short, basically I'd become a web designer and
it, it was, when I was in school it didn't even exist as a major.
so you know, we were sitting
there and we were building webpages and
so forth and I was building websites.
but Rita Agner and Dawn Moore, one thing that they did was they
basically thrust me into a ton of responsibility at a very early age.
And my advice to you is to find somebody
who is willing to trust you very early on.
I remember being a designer.
And when I would design something I
would just maybe move something over ten pixels.
And then I would run over to my boss and I would say what
do you think?
And he'd give me some feedback.
And I'd go back.
And I'd run over again.
And then something clicked in my head.
I basically was a punk.
I was afraid to design something, you know, like, work on it on my own.
And then say this is what it should be.
This is a solution.
I don't need you to art direct me.
So I started rebelling and I started designing more
and more and then my boss is coming at
me and saying well wait a minute, why do you have so much done
when you haven't actually y'know talked to
me and I said well y'know give me
the opporitunity to fail and I think
that's as a younger person that's the one
thing you want to try to do if you really want to control your career.
Is to try to put yourself or, or work for a company or work
for somebody and work someplace where they're
willing to give you a chance to fail.
They're not going to basically turn you into a
quasi intern whenever you go into that company.
That's why start-up companies are great to work
for because We don't care how old you are.
Whatever you really need, you really, really need
to act like you have five years of experience
or something because we don't really have the, the
luxury of educating you on how do to things.
My bosses saw that I wanted the opportunity
to fail and they gave me that opportunity.
they put me in front
of companies like McDonalds, Steel Case, Caterpillar.
Where I was presenting to senior vice
presidents, the things that we were doing.
So I was this, you know, really poor
kid from the projects, with tons of self-consciousness.
and they took all of that out of
me by forcing me into positions where I had
to basically grow up, become a professional, learn how
to present not be afraid, you know, to kind
of basically steer or, you know, kind of command a room.
which I didn't know at the time were.
Were key ingredients to being entrepreneurial being the
leader being able to motivate and push people.
And also quite frankly trying to be an example for others to follow.
I didn't know that at the time, but by
them doing that it gave me a lot of confidence.
So its important for you guys whenever you're working
for somebody again to try to find people that basically.
They're willing to listen to you when you describe what you want to be.
You know, if you're not thinking about that right now,
what do you want to be five years from now?
It's very hard to think about that, but don't think of it as a job.
Don't say, I want to be a an engineer.
Think about what you want to, I want to be, I want to be leading people.
Think about that.
Or I want to be
doing something innovative.
and innovation is kind of like a generic word.
But maybe I want to do something that no one else is doing.
I want to work for a company
that's trying to fundamentally change something.
When you're able to start articulating what
you want, people who don't really know what
to do with people who have nothing
on their resume can start to get creative.
And I said, that's a pretty good mix for an internet entrepreneur.
So now at this point, right?
I've got ten years of business experience, so I have
a little bit of a swagger, I think that I know everything.
Again, here I am 20 years some years, you know, 27?
Thinking I know everything.
I'm going to go off, I'm just going to start a business.
Right **** around you know like if my boss can do it I can do it.
Again my ears were closed so I decided
I was going to, try to start a company.
I was going to try to start it at night
and I had this idea and one of the things.
that you should do when you're, trying to come up with an
idea for your own, for your own business, is to try and solve.
The idea behind was supposed to be a content management system,
the uniqueness was, you're like a law firm, you have a website.
But the most important aspect of your website is your attorney directory.
You can't just buy an attorney
directory off the shelf.
So we're going to give you all the core content system,
but we're also going to have
vertical apps, dealer locators, attorney directories.
So, you know, we basically just fizzled through the money that we had.
That company failed.
but remember, you know, I had this determination in
me that I was going to try to make a business.
I was going to try to be successful, so I pivoted immediately.
I thought about hiring, and
I thought about whenever I was hiring designers at my old design firm, I
hated, I hated, hated, hated hiring them because I had a full time job.
So, Jo- John's kind of talked about what the Resumator is.
So I basically, at that point, I ate a
piece of humble pie because I had a failed company.
And the first thing that I did was I
started ingesting information about how to run a technology startup.
So, you guys are fortunate that you have tons
of history.
I promise you, if you watch the TechCrunch40 demos.
From the very first Tech Crunch 40, if you go to
sites like Mixergy and you start to hear the stories of entrepreneurs.
you know, I was fortunate whenever John invested in me.
he, he flew me down here to Santa Barbara the other time I was down here.
And probably the only other time when you had bad weather.
I met Kevin O'Conner who was I think founder of
Double Click, right?
And I remember listening to Kevin O'Connor's story
long before I ever met him so I was
kind of feeling I was in like kind of a
startup entrepreneur rock star scene whenever I met him.
But my point is, is if you want to
do something you need to start ingesting information about it.
So all these videos that people are putting
up if you want to be a startup CEO.
You need to start hearing the stories that started CEOs.
You're not too young to have a
subscription to Ink Magazine or Forbes Magazines.
Because it's not just, there's there's tips in there about
how to basically grow skills that you don't have yet.
You guys don't have skills around leading people.
You don't have skills about motivating people and so forth yet.
If you start to ingest information like just put on your headset
and don't listen to music listen to an entrepenur talk about thei rjourney.
That's how you can really start to learn a lot
about basically building a business and that's what I did, while
I was coding Resumator I was just ingesting as many
stories and as many tips as possible about building a startup.
the next thing is I just educated myself on how to get into a start up.
Or, in, into the start up world, networking.
If you guys want to work at an early stage start up, early stage
company, you gotta basically start to hang
out with people who are in that world.
You guys are fortunate being out here.
You're more likely to run into them.
I wasn't.
so, you know, one of the things that I
did was I connected with them over, over email.
So you know, there's all kinds of folks that were out here and rooms like
Hacker News and so forth, and I
would just start asking questions and so forth.
I would say, do you know such and such?
I was just trying to connect with people, which, by the way, I was able
to leverage later on for partnerships and so forth in my business.
And when I ingested enough information about how
to run a company, I then started applying it.
But the reality is, building you personal network right now is going
to be one of the most important thigns that you can do.
You can get a job by asking somebody for an introduction.
The more time you spend on Facebook as a
senior The more likely you are going to be stunting
your ability to network in the future you know.
How many of you are connected to John Greyhouse on LinkedIn.
John Greyhouse is a venture capitalist who started no, no not started but
rather was an earlier stage person of
a company that was acquired by Centrix.
He down the road, and he's educating you, but the whole
idea is, is that if you could build an authentic relationship
with him, not just think, you know, you're just going
to send an invite to him so that whenever he
sees your Linkedin invite, he's thinking, I know this person,
and it sounds like they're motivated and they want to do something.
that's a, that's a, a authentic relationship that you need to build
with as many people who can help you in your career as possible.
So I've, I messed up.
I punked out.
I quit
my job, that's not the punking out part.
and then I got a great job offer from another company.
I took a job at Grasshopper which by the way is a great company.
But it stunted the growth of Resumator because
suddenly I was focusing on all of these
tasks inside of Grasshopper and I wasn't focused
on building Resumator or growing as an entrepreneur.
So I punked out
I went to Grasshopper.
Company you know, was, was slowed down because of that, and then
basically I finally, I said, okay I gotta focus on Resumator full time.
Now luckily, I'd been doing some of these things right and I was able to
start networking and I was able to talk
to a guy named David Cohen from TechStars.
So anyway, we were probably sitting on Now,
20 customers at the time over five months, I think.
Yeah, it was pretty bad because I wasn't focusing on the business.
And I had networked with David Cohen before and I was able
to leverage that, that connection to say, hey let us sponsor TechStars.
So, I said, you know, let's just give
away out product to, to your early stage company.
So, those connections connected me to basically all of
the tech entrepreneurs that I know today, just from
that TechStars deal.
They put there a little logo up on the
bottom of this site and then that's where we
started getting enough traction that it got, it led
to John recognizing our company because somebody mentioned us.
Now.
You know, Resumater is not a success story right now.
Like, I think John said it best before, and I agree,
we're a great Pittsburgh store, but we're not a great national store.
We're a great opportunity, but we're not a great company yet.
we're still trying to figure those things out,
and here are some of the mistakes I'm making.
and I encourage you to try to think
about in your career how to avoid these mistakes.
I think
one of the mistakes that I'm making as a, and to
give you an idea too, here are here are the brag points.
If I stand over here brag points.
And then I'll kind of wrap up here.
I, I.
Run the compnay that has both presidential campaigne these are
things that he mentioned before but think about how this sounds.
I have you know we have both presidential campaings using our platform
some of the hottest growing startups, you know I was recently featured as
a regional finalist for entrepenuer of the year blah, blah, blah.
I step over here and I htink.
We have a company that grows steadily but not exponentially.
We have an audience of 600,000 businesses but we onlly
have you know a couple thousand of them, and, we're
trying to find senior people in the city of Pittsburgh
that kind of understand how to grow a software company.
But let me give you some
[LAUGH]
but let me give you some concrete pieces
of advice, just just bullet list pieces of advice.
If you guys want to gain respect or if
you're trying to start a company and you want to
try to have people help you with it, you basically
have, think about this it's: words, actions, and then accomplishments.
You're going to be trying to use your words early on to try to get a job.
You're going to be trying to use your words to get people to work with you.
and that's where I'm going to help you so far, because they're just words.
Just like early on, if I was just talking
about my business, to John's point, nobody was going to care.
Now, you can
[INAUDIBLE]
to have some actions, if you start to act.
So in other words, you know.
If you're trying to start a company, you're going
out and you're telling people what you're working on.
They see you're working on your code, you're showing them demos.
Or maybe you're looking for a job.
I had a job opportunity at Saatchi and Saatchi in New
York, an ad agency, because he told me my portfolio sucked.
If I wanted to work at an ad agency, I had to build ads.
So I went out, I built ads.
I designed ads, I showed it to them.
They offered me a job.
I turned it down because I don't want to live in Rochester it's too cold.
Um,
[LAUGH]
and then finally so if you think of it with my company right.
We had actions we started gaining momentum people were seeing
that we were building a really great piece of software.
But you know where you really, rally, really
start to gain momentum in your career in your
ability to higher great people work with great
people in your startup is when you have accomplishments.
So like, getting salesforce to invest in us.
Getting the presidential campaigns.
Once you start to have things that you
can check off as accomplishments on your resume
or in your actions as an entrepreneurs, people
will start to follow you much more quickly.
So you need to figure out how to tap into those things.
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