ACG Founders’ Panel

Posted on May 16, 2012

San Francisco, CA.
June 21, 2012.
The Association for Corporate Growth Annual Founders Lunch

“EVERYTHING YOU WANTED TO KNOW ABOUT…. FOUNDING A COMPANY, BUT WERE AFRAID TO ASK”

Rob was the Guest Moderator for this event.

Entrepreneurs and founders have a certain mystique about them—when they succeed. Most don’t. We’ve got three very successful founders and we’re going to ask them some personal and challenging questions. Questions like: What’s unique about you that made you successful? Who was most critical to the growth? What almost took you down? How confident are you that you can do it again? What would you do differently next time? Come and get inside of these founder’s heads.

The three panelists for the event were:

• Gary Kremen, Founder of Match.com, venture-backed Clean Power Finance, now Founder & CEO: Sociogramics
• Chris Boone, Founded/Led/Sold AppCentral – now founder: Cimbal, Inc.
• Neil Grimmer, CEO: The Nest Collective

In summary, now that the event is complete:

The panelists discussed the balance between reflection and action when acting in the founder’s role and talked about the pro’s and con’s around taking venture money. Chris talked about how he was able to get corporate debt to finance growth for Cimbal.  Gary spoke about strategic differences between himself and the board about how to grow Match.com (in the early days) that were difficult to work through.  Neil talked about how he was able to validate the market for Plum as they founded the firm–a mix of prior work he’d done at IDEO and for other food/consumer products companies and his own experience as a new father.

If you would like to participate in events like this one, please contact Robert Sher at R.Sher@ceotoceo.biz.