Episode #105: Q&A with Sean Ammirati
Question and Answer with Sean Ammirati:
This episode comes to you from our special event series. We had the privilege of hosting a special event with Sean Ammirati. Sean is an Entrepreneur turned Venture Capitalist and Professor. He’s built and sold his own businesses and now he spends his time helping others grow theirs. One of his companies was acquired by LinkedIN. He’s also a professor of Entrepreneurship at Carnegie Mellon. I’ve interviewed Sean for the Podcast before in episode #96 & #97. I’ll include a link to that in the show notes.
Questions Asked:
- When starting a company, what do people waste time and effort on and what should they be focused on?
- How do you scale non-profits as opposed to for profits?
- How do you balance living for God as an entrepreneur and not letting greed consume you?
- How do you handle money with humility?
- How do you rebound from failure?
- What are some best practices when it comes to scaling your business?
- How can you avoid consistently raising money, but not making any as a new venture?
- How do you make it easier for people to make referrals about your company?
We’d encourage all of you to get a copy of Sean’s new book: The Science of Growth: How Facebook Beat Friendster and Nine Other Star-ups left the rest in the dust!
What I love about this book:
- It’s backed up by research
- Sean’s lived it
- It gives you an action plan for your business.
Links Mentioned in this Post:
- Interview with Sean on his book: The Science with Growth
- Interview with Sean on entrepreneurship
- Pittsburgh Kids Foundation
- PopInvasion
Sean’s Bio:
Sean Ammirati joined Birchmere Ventures in 2012 to as the partner leading Birchmere Labs, a seed and studio fund focused on community driven commerce startups.
Prior to that, he had over 12 years founding, building and selling businesses in the media and software industries. Sean was previously Chief Operating Officer of ReadWriteWeb, one of the most influential sites about the future of technology and innovation. In December 2011, the company was acquired by SAY Media to strengthen its technology channel. Sean was previously co-founder and CEO of mSpoke, which was the first acquisition of LinkedIn.
Sean is currently an Adjunct Professor of Entrepreneurship at Carnegie Mellon University. He also was a founding advisor to Innovation Works’ AlphaLab accelerator. He holds a B.S. in computer information systems from Grove City College and was a research fellow at Carnegie Mellon’s Sloan Software Industry Center.
Connect with Sean:
L3 Leadership Announcements:
1.) L3 Leadership Breakfast Series – Our next leadership event will be a breakfast on Saturday, July 16th with Lee Kricher, Pastor of Amplify Church. Register here for this event!
2.) L3 Leadership Mastermind Groups – We have a small groups of young leaders that get together twice a month to discuss leadership, hold each other accountable to our goals, and to build a community of leaders passionate about making a difference in our city. If you’re interested in attending, e-mail me at dougsmith@l3leadership.org.
Sponsors:
The Pittsburgh Kids Foundation is for youth pastors, churches, and anyone who is interested in reaching kids for Jesus and helping to expand the Kingdom of God in Pittsburgh and beyond. Through a variety of ways, the PKF helps churches and others working with youth to be more effective and strategic in their efforts.
Popinvasion is your creative agency. We are the team who have the technical understanding to produce stunning photography and videos, and the marketing wisdom to partner that with compelling written content, web development, SEO, and graphic design to really let your business soar.
How You Can Help this Podcast:
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