{"id":4113,"date":"2015-07-23T06:00:00","date_gmt":"2015-07-23T13:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thinkapps.com\/blog\/?p=4113"},"modified":"2015-07-22T17:07:43","modified_gmt":"2015-07-23T00:07:43","slug":"4-lessons-learned-on-the-journey-to-over-10-million-users","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thinkapps.com\/blog\/entrepreneurship\/4-lessons-learned-on-the-journey-to-over-10-million-users\/","title":{"rendered":"4 Lessons Learned on the Journey to Over 10 Million Users"},"content":{"rendered":"

A pair of startup founders share the most important lessons they’ve learned while growing to more than 10 million users<\/em><\/p>\n

General Assembly<\/a> recently hosted a fireside chat with Andrew Maguire<\/a> and Nathan Parcells<\/a>, co-founders of Looksharp<\/a>. Founded in 2009, Looksharp is now the largest U.S.-based college job platform, with over 10 million students using the service per year.<\/p>\n

In the hour-long discussion, Maguire and Parcells answered questions from General Assembly and viewers of the live stream about a range of fascinating topics from starting a technology company without a technical founder<\/a>, to making connections, and building a world-class team.<\/p>\n

Here\u00a0are four lessons they learned while\u00a0on their journey to 10 million users:<\/h3>\n

1) Not having a technical co-founder can be messy but still work out for the best<\/h2>\n

Maguire and Parcells started working on Looksharp when they were both college students. They saw their friends and peers struggle with finding fulfilling professional opportunities, and they felt passionately about solving this challenge.<\/p>\n

\"10<\/a><\/p>\n

They decided to pursue their idea of building a huge job platform that would help college students directly. They wanted to build a technology company, but neither Maguire nor Parcells had a background in technology.<\/p>\n

They\u00a0decided to work with an outside company to build the early version of their product, which they now look back on as ugly and poorly made.<\/p>\n

\u201cOn the one side, it\u2019s one of those things I would never encourage someone to do exactly the same process that we did, in terms of going into the waters without having that technical lead to kick things off, but yet it did provide the stepping stones to get where we are at now,\u201d said Parcells. \u201cAnd in addition, it pushed us down the road of doing a lot of the lean startup best practices<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

They ended up bringing in a technical advisor as another co-founder and remaking the product completely, but the experience of having a low-grade prototype was still enormously helpful for getting something out there early and testing assumptions.<\/p>\n

While technical co-founders do bring so much to the table in the early stages of a product, lacking one won\u2019t break your startup. It\u2019s much more important to deepen your understanding of your market. If you have to do that with a not-so-pretty prototype, you could still benefit greatly from early feedback<\/a> and end up saving time and money on code that might change later anyway.<\/p>\n

(It’s also worth noting\u00a0that\u00a0Maguire and Parcells might have had a very different experience if they had chosen a different company to help with building their first product. We happen to know one<\/a> that produces beautiful, highly quality work and thus has a lot of happy customers.)<\/p>\n

2) Your network is enormously powerful, but it\u2019s okay if you don\u2019t have one<\/h2>\n

Having a network of knowledgeable advisors was a key factor for Looksharp\u2019s success. It\u2019s always important to bounce ideas off of others and have a strong support system. Many people can tap into their schools, previous jobs, and friends and family; oftentimes, these networks are more expansive than we could have imagined.<\/p>\n

But, if you feel that you lack a broad network or are not able to connect to the right advisors through your existing contacts, cold outreach can be a viable option.<\/p>\n

\"10<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cIf you\u2019re working on something that you\u2019re passionate about and it\u2019s relevant to someone else who has been in the industry for a while … people like that want to see where innovation is happening in an area they care about and you can generally go and find a way to sync up,\u201d explained\u00a0Parcells.<\/p>\n

Once you\u2019re able to make that initial connection, make sure that your advisors also get something valuable from the conversations. People often love sharing their advice and their experiences, especially if they are extremely passionate about the field.<\/p>\n

Listen to what they say, and in return, be confident and open about your idea. It could be the next big thing to them, as well.<\/p>\n

3) Building a strong team is just as important as building a strong product<\/h2>\n

Since Looksharp is committed to helping people find the right job, it comes as no surprise that Maguire and Parcells care deeply about finding the right people for their own company<\/a>.<\/p>\n

As a startup\u00a0with a strong mission, Looksharp likes candidates who understand the social impact<\/a> of helping college students find jobs. They tend to love people who are driven but also humble and collaborative.<\/p>\n

Regardless of which characteristics you seek specifically in your team, spotting patterns in people who have thrived and people who haven\u2019t can be an enormously helpful tactic. The Looksharp co-founders have also had success going with someone with less experience but who is motivated, positive, and an all-around great person to work with.<\/p>\n

Building a strong team really starts with finding a strong business partner, and Maguire and Parcells had advice to share around this key matter, too.<\/p>\n

\"10<\/a><\/p>\n

Parcells (middle) and Maguire (right) were interviewed by Matt Cynamon of General Assembly (image credit<\/a>)<\/em><\/p>\n

When Maguire wanted to start a company, he knew that he wanted his childhood friend, Parcells, to be on board. Maguire knew that Parcells was smart but also tough \u2014 tough enough to withstand the ups and downs of having your own business.<\/p>\n

While working so closely together can change the dynamics of a close friendship, they had a strong foundation and knew that they could rely on each other. It also helps if the team has complementary skills and styles; each person can have their own focus areas and bring something different to the table.<\/p>\n

4) Being less of an expert and scaling back on work can actually help<\/h2>\n

While there are benefits to having strong expertise in an area, there\u2019s also a lot of power in being able to look at something from a completely fresh and naive perspective, said Maguire.<\/p>\n

Both co-founders agree that people who believe they can\u2019t have a startup because they lack experience are wrong. You might not know all the answers that investors and accelerators tell you to prepare for, but just jumping into the game can work.<\/p>\n

Once you\u2019re on the job, know when to take a break and not push just because you think you need to. Thinking that you have to sprint all the time at a startup is not true, said Parcells.<\/p>\n

\"10<\/a><\/p>\n

It\u2019s more important to know when you have to sprint and be ready for it. Being able to take breaks can be more helpful than putting in more hours.<\/p>\n

Concluding Remarks<\/h2>\n

In just a few years, Looksharp grew from two friends with no experience running a business \u2014 much less a technology business \u2014\u00a0driving around with a scrappy prototype to an enormously successful company that has more than 10 million users, has raised over $10 million in capital, lives up to their mission, and continues to grow.<\/p>\n

To learn more about their success first-hand, watch the full discussion<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A pair of startup founders share the most important lessons they’ve learned while growing to more than 10 million users General Assembly recently hosted a fireside chat with Andrew Maguire…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":48,"featured_media":4619,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[85,46,307,16,45],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n4 Lessons Learned on the Journey to Over 10 Million Users<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The co-founders of Looksharp, a college job platform, share the most important lessons they've learned while growing to more than 10 million users.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/thinkapps.com\/blog\/entrepreneurship\/4-lessons-learned-on-the-journey-to-over-10-million-users\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"4 Lessons Learned on the Journey to Over 10 Million Users\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The co-founders of Looksharp, a college job platform, share the most important lessons they've learned while growing to more than 10 million users.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/thinkapps.com\/blog\/entrepreneurship\/4-lessons-learned-on-the-journey-to-over-10-million-users\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Build Blog by ThinkApps | Content on Entrepreneurship, Mobile Apps, Web Platforms and more\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2015-07-23T13:00:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2015-07-23T00:07:43+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/d1vqbpto5tbbz0.cloudfront.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/23170000\/looksharp-for-feature.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"897\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"403\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Julia Chen\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Julia Chen\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"6 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/thinkapps.com\/blog\/entrepreneurship\/4-lessons-learned-on-the-journey-to-over-10-million-users\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/thinkapps.com\/blog\/entrepreneurship\/4-lessons-learned-on-the-journey-to-over-10-million-users\/\",\"name\":\"4 Lessons Learned on the Journey to Over 10 Million Users\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"http:\/\/localhost:8080\/blog\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/thinkapps.com\/blog\/entrepreneurship\/4-lessons-learned-on-the-journey-to-over-10-million-users\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/thinkapps.com\/blog\/entrepreneurship\/4-lessons-learned-on-the-journey-to-over-10-million-users\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/d1vqbpto5tbbz0.cloudfront.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/23170000\/looksharp-for-feature.png\",\"datePublished\":\"2015-07-23T13:00:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2015-07-23T00:07:43+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"http:\/\/localhost:8080\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/d08e6108ac49766e206eb5195360f76b\"},\"description\":\"The co-founders of Looksharp, a college job platform, share the most important lessons they've learned while growing to more than 10 million users.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/thinkapps.com\/blog\/entrepreneurship\/4-lessons-learned-on-the-journey-to-over-10-million-users\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/thinkapps.com\/blog\/entrepreneurship\/4-lessons-learned-on-the-journey-to-over-10-million-users\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/thinkapps.com\/blog\/entrepreneurship\/4-lessons-learned-on-the-journey-to-over-10-million-users\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/d1vqbpto5tbbz0.cloudfront.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/23170000\/looksharp-for-feature.png\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/d1vqbpto5tbbz0.cloudfront.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/23170000\/looksharp-for-feature.png\",\"width\":897,\"height\":403,\"caption\":\"10 Million Users - 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