#140 - Tech Founding Lessons from an Incorrigible Entrepreneur - Jothy Rosenberg

“It’s so important to start with a problem and make sure you understand it is a big market. Many tech founding teams end up building a technology that is still in search of a problem."

Jothy Rosenberg is a serial entrepreneur who has founded 9 startups with exits of over $100 million. He is the author of an upcoming book “Think Like a Tech Founder: Anecdotes of an Incorrigible Entrepreneur”. In this episode, Jothy shared his valuable lessons learned on founding and managing a startup, such as why and when you should decide to startup, valuable advice for founders (including letting go founders who don’t work out), dealing with failures, being the CEO of your own startup, and traits of a bad CEO we should avoid. Towards the end, Jothy shared inspiring message about his story overcoming physical disability that resulted in a foundation “Who Says I Can’t”, and described his formula why people with physical disability so often overachieve.

Listen out for:

• Career Journey - [00:04:48]
• Jumping into Startup - [00:12:34]
• When to Start a Startup - [00:16:36]
• Definition of Founders - [00:19:01]
• Advice for Founders - [00:21:44]
• Letting Founders Go - [00:24:20]
• Dealing with Failure - [00:26:47]
• Lessons from Big Companies - [00:30:20]
• Being a Startup CEO - [00:34:16]
• Bad CEOs - [00:38:18]
• Who Says I Can’t Foundation - [00:44:31]
• Who Says I Can’t Formula - [00:49:10]
• 3 Tech Lead Wisdom - [00:54:00]

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Jothy Rosenberg’s Bio
Jothy Rosenberg has been an entrepreneur since 1988, and has founded and run nine technology startups—two of which had exits of over $100 million. He was the general manager of Borland’s Developer Division from 1992-1997, where he led Borland’s Languages division, including Delphi, C++Builder, and JBuilder. He has a PhD in computer science, and has authored two technical books, a business book, memoir, and childrens book. Jothy is the creator of the series Who Says I Can’t on YouTube, and established and runs the The Who Says I Can’t Foundation.

Follow Jothy:

• LinkedIn – linkedin.com/in/jothy
• Who Says I Can’t – whosaysicant.org
• Dover Microsystems – dovermicrosystems.com
• Email – jothy@dovermicrosystems.com

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