In this episode I chat with parallel entrepreneur Mack Kolarich, Co-founder and CEO of SceneSquid, and Co-founder and VP of Product of Startup Angels. He also organizes events for Startup Weekend and Startup Jackpot.

Mack tells his story about how balances his time and keeps his sanity while working on two startups, how he pivoted from one idea to launch SceneSquid, why customer discovery is so important before building anything, how he has grown the SceneSquid marketplace to multiple cities, and what he’s doing at Startup Angels to increase the number of angel investors.

We needed to know exactly how each side thought about the process in order to build something that they wanted to use…we probably did four months of customer discovery. (click to tweet)

In this episode, you’ll learn from Mack:

• How he balances working on two startups and why time away from work is critical to avoiding burnout.
• The big pivot that led to the launch of SceneSquid.
• Why doing customer discovery (and lots of it) before building anything is crucial to success.
• How he leverages Twitter to grow both sides of the SceneSquid marketplace in each city to which he expands.
• The importance of trust when approaching small businesses, and how partnerships with local Chambers of Commerce and associations can help quickly build this trust.
• Why paid advertising didn’t work for SceneSquid, what pitfalls to look out for when running Google Adwords, and why you have to sometimes look past the numbers for insights.
• The steps Startup Angels is taking to increase the number of angel investors across the world.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• Followerwonk
• FullStory
• GeekTime
• Boomerang

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