The easiest way to explain Liquidspace is…
a marketplace where people can confidently and quickly choose a better space to work or meet by the hour or day – online or from a mobile phone. Simply put, we are consumerizing real estate.
How long did it take to build LiquidSpace?
12 months from the first spark of the idea to the demonstration of our mobile app at SXSW in March 2011.
Another example of Collaborative Consumption I admire is…
Lyft. It is my default means of getting from point A to point B in and around San Francisco. Delightfully simple. Reliable. Incredibly useful. Everything a consumer service should be.
If you weren’t doing LiquidSpace, you would be…
Painting, racing bikes and priming the creative pump for the next big thing.
A failure I’ve learned from is…
to always consult your attorney and your wife (especially if they are one and the same) before signing a personal guarantee on a commercial real estate development loan three months before a global financial crisis.
My big piece of advice to social entrepreneurs is …
that the truly great companies are actually four-year “overnight” successes. Trust your instincts, persevere and don’t forget to call your mom.
Tell us something about yourself that we can’t find on the internet…
The story of my unlikely journey from shy, terrified wallflower at the 8 grade school sockhop, to beaming father dancing with my daughter Tallulah at her spring ballet recital.
What advice can you share about building the right team?
Organizational excellence is alchemy. Hire athletes, not resumes, and let them workout with the team before making your decision.
What would you do differently next time?
Please ask me in 5 years.
A unique factoid/statistic that surprises people about LiquidSpace is …
that it was founded in Sun Valley, Idaho, a mountain town with three stoplights. Our stellar crew of 24 is distributed across eight cities, four timezones and two continents.
