This week’s Misfit Entrepreneur is Andy Mowat. Andy has helped build 3 $1Billion+ companies, Upwork, Boc, and Culture Amp. He is a serial entrepreneur who knows how to build a scalable company that gets results. His specialty is building successful sales and marketing organizations.
But, at the core, he’s a great entrepreneur. He knows how to spot a trend, create the vehicle to capitalize on the opportunity, and make it go. Most recently, he is doing that in his latest company, Gated, which is a unique twist on how people can access you.
I want to discuss all of this with him today and squeeze all of the wisdom I can from him on how to start, grow, and build a brand.
Andy’s path was not a straight line. He went to college on the East Coast and ended up in finance and banking. He took Czech while he was in college and ended up going into private equity in eastern Europe.
He ended up running the finance function for every grocery store chain in Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Poland. It was early in the days of coming out of Communism and was eye opening.
He then went to business school but came out in 2001 and things were slow. He found a family office to work for and they tasked him with finding a new business to buy and get into. He suggested health clubs and ended up building high end athletic clubs throughout the west. He knew tech was where it was at, so he then reached out Elance and others and cold called the CEO’s ending up working for Elance. He ran sales and marketing operations. He then went to work for a company as a co-founder outsourcing administration assistants. He then went to work for BOCs running all their post-sale operations and then leading marketing. He then went to work for CultureAmp taking it from $5 mil to $80m. Along the way, he noticed the need to need to better guard a person’s email, so he built Gated.
At the 7:30 mark, Andy shares what Gated is. It is an email management system that keeps people from getting to your inbox unless they are willing to give a donation to charity. It helps to make sure you are communicating with people that genuinely want to communicate with you.
What elements are needed to build a unicorn – a billion-dollar company?
Talk to us about Go to Market Machines. How do you build a successful, scalable business?
Any specific part of the 6 that you feel is most important?
What are the key elements to building a successful sales team and growth engine?
What should business owners and entrepreneurs do from the start to avoid some of the common mistakes in building a sales organization?
At the 17 min mark, Andy talks about being a non-technical founder….
What type of data should people be looking at to maximize the impact of a sales team?
What does it take to build a great brand?
Most unexpected thing that you have found on your entrepreneur journey?
Routines or best practices you do every day to help you maximize your success?
Best Quote: The classic mistake is that founder’s hire a salesperson thinking they can figure out how to go to market. The founder needs to do that and figure it out.
Andy's Misfit 3:
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