Start-up to Big Company

The The MouseDriver Chronicles finishes, the Insiders continue, and our quest to dominate the world with MouseDriver continued, right? (for those not in the know, MouseDriver is a computer mouse shaped as the head of a driver golf club….yeah, tons of intrinsic value there).  Not exactly.  Both Kyle and I knew that we eventually wanted to sell Platinum Concepts, Inc. and MouseDriver, but we never anticipated how long and arduous that process would actually take. Eventually, we did sell the assets of MouseDriver in mid-2003 to a small gift distributor on the East Coast.  Not too sure what they’re doing with the product at this point, but every now and then I do run across a MouseDriver online.  Honestly, I’m guessing that our leftover inventory is still making the online retailing rounds.

And where did Kyle and I end up?  I spent most of 2003 riding the coattails of The MouseDriver Chronicles.  Speaking at conferences, events, business school lectures….you name it.  It was cool talking about my experiences, and in many cases, actually getting paid to do so.  But my 15 minutes of fame didn’t last long and by July, 2003 I was exhausted.  I knew I needed a reprieve from the emotional roller coaster that I’d been on for the last 4 years and ended up taking a job at Microsoft. The Microsoft experience was great.  Learned all about leadership, building, managing and growing teams and even got to do some pretty cool marketing things.  Left Microsoft in 2007 to join WhitePages, where I’ve helped the company reposition the brand and grow their customer base.  Check out banthephonebook.org for a cool, and much needed, social cause campaign WhitePages recently launched.

Kyle went to Intuit where he worked on their online version of QuickBooks.  In 2005 he took advantage of an opportunity to jump over to Google, where he helped launch a number of new products, including Google Checkout.  When Google acquired YouTube a couple of years ago, Kyle saw an opportunity to join a team that was a bit smaller, less structured and a bit more entrepreneurial.  Kyle is still at YouTube helping to grow that business, and gets to work with Chad Hurley (founder of YouTube), but I know his desire to someday start another company is still strong.

So, did we leave the entrepreneurial life for the corporate world?  Yeah, we did.  We both needed the reprieve and both knew that we could acquire some valuable skillsets in bigger companies that would help us succeed in our next ventures.

And what’s next? We still talk every now and then about what to start next.  Who knows, maybe this blog will chronicle our thought process. 🙂

Questions, comments?  Feel free to comment below.