Announcing Matrix XII: An $800M fund to invest from concept to Series A Read more
Over the years, we’ve heard from our founders here at Matrix that some of the best learning opportunities they’ve had has come from 1:1 conversations with other entrepreneurs. And while there is no shortage of resources for entrepreneurs (including content we have built at Viewpoints and forEntrepreneurs), there are very few public forums where successful founders and operators speak candidly about their career journeys and discuss what has/ has not worked for them as they’ve scaled their businesses.
That is why we are excited to announce ‘Focus on the Founder’ — a podcast series that will do exactly what it sounds like — bring the focus back on the founder. In the coming months, we will be releasing a series of episodes where we ask successful founders and operators questions about their journey into entrepreneurship, how they’ve gone about making critical decisions (e.g. hiring, fundraising, etc.) and what they would do differently looking back.
The initial focus will be on founders and senior execs in FinTech — though this may evolve over time. We will keep the episodes short, informal and frank. The very first episode is with Ryan Williams the CEO and co-founder of Cadre. You can find the podcast episode on SoundCloud, iTunes & Google Play.
In this episode you will learn about…
· How Ryan went from selling headbands at age 13 to flipping houses in college to launching Cadre. Or as he puts it “Headbands to Houses to High Rises”
· When the real “Aha” moment came for Ryan that led him to believe that there was a big opportunity in real estate technology
· What Ryan believes is the single most important characteristic behind the success of companies like Amazon, Airbnb and Fidelity and how Cadre has embraced that characteristic
· How Ryan works with his investors and the value they have provided to him beyond the obvious capital injection
· The crucial metrics and KPIs that Cadre tracks and measures
· What other areas Ryan is excited about and would explore if he were not building Cadre…hint some of them are pretty controversial in the venture world today
