Office Hours Podcast: How Outer Aims To Disrupt The Outdoor Furniture Industry
Spencer Rascoff serves as executive chairman of dot.LA. He is an entrepreneur and company leader who co-founded Zillow, Hotwire, dot.LA, Pacaso and Supernova, and who served as Zillow's CEO for a decade. During Spencer's time as CEO, Zillow won dozens of "best places to work" awards as it grew to over 4,500 employees, $3 billion in revenue, and $10 billion in market capitalization. Prior to Zillow, Spencer co-founded and was VP Corporate Development of Hotwire, which was sold to Expedia for $685 million in 2003. Through his startup studio and venture capital firm, 75 & Sunny, Spencer is an active angel investor in over 100 companies and is incubating several more.
I don't quite remember why I passed on investing in Jiake Liu's company, Outer. But I do know why I had him on this week's episode of "Office Hours."
Liu has all sorts of qualities I admire in founders: He's dedicated, smart, experienced and he's had some high-quality "failure" that taught him big lessons about how to lead and run a business.
Running businesses was something Liu started doing as a teenager, largely by solving business problems for his family. That hands on experience gave him a fundamental understanding of how to run a successful enterprise. It also fed his entrepreneurial thirst and ultimately led to his cofounding and leading Outer, an outdoor furniture and lifestyle company.
Hear some hard-earned lessons from Liu about startups, his "Shark Tank" pitch day experience and how he maintains investor relationships even if they pass on investing — like with me.
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Spencer Rascoff serves as executive chairman of dot.LA. He is an entrepreneur and company leader who co-founded Zillow, Hotwire, dot.LA, Pacaso and Supernova, and who served as Zillow's CEO for a decade. During Spencer's time as CEO, Zillow won dozens of "best places to work" awards as it grew to over 4,500 employees, $3 billion in revenue, and $10 billion in market capitalization. Prior to Zillow, Spencer co-founded and was VP Corporate Development of Hotwire, which was sold to Expedia for $685 million in 2003. Through his startup studio and venture capital firm, 75 & Sunny, Spencer is an active angel investor in over 100 companies and is incubating several more.
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