Page 25 - 6 Secrets to Startup Success

4 6 SECRETS TO STARTUP SUCCESS

iPhone revolutionized the use of mobile devices, the Duke
University neuroscientist hacked into his medical students’
iPods and loaded them with hundreds of anatomy pictures
and phrases. The students raved about learning anatomy
terms while waiting for coffee, riding the bus, or doing loads
of laundry. Mark knew he was on to something, so he
launched Modality, a developer of premium learning appli-
cations for the iPhone and iPad. “I was so caught up in the
beauty of the idea and the possibilities around it,” he recalls,
“I was not thinking rationally.”

9 J.C. Faulkner left a senior leadership job at one of America’s
largest banks to build a different kind of mortgage company
and to create a better place to work. “I had come to grips with
the fact that all the money I’d saved over a twelve-year career
would be gone in six months,” he recalls. “When I told the
bank that I was leaving to start my own company, I offered
to stick around for thirty days to help with the transition.
They walked me out the next day—with a box in my hand.”

9 And then there’s Mark Kahn, who tagged along with his boss
to a French casino and hit upon a once-in-a-lifetime winning
streak. At the $72,000 mark, he turned to his boss and said
he was done. “That’s smart,” his boss said. “You should quit
while you’re ahead.” “No,” he replied, “I’m quitting my job.
I’ve got my seed money, and I’m doing my startup.” He has
since founded two ventures, including TRAFFIQ , a leading
online advertising platform listed as number fifty on Inc. mag-
azine’s 2010 list of America’s fastest-growing private compa-
nies.

Startups come in all shapes and sizes. Aspiring founders will at-
tempt just about any idea, product, or business model under the sun.
If it can be conceived, some dreamer has probably tried it.

Founders take the startup plunge for a dizzying array of reasons:
to be free, to change the world, to launch a can’t-miss product, to make
buckets of money, to follow in Dad’s footsteps, or to spend more time

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