Having successfully created and launched a business where robots dart through distribution centers securing e-commerce products for delivery, Kiva Systems founder, Mick Mountz reflects on growing his company to 250 employees in just under a decade – and the company culture that organically formed alongside it.
Mountz tells Founder Stories host Chris Dixon that Kiva Systems didn’t define its culture until “about five years” into operations. “We took this kind of latent approach, which is go fast, have fun, build, be competitive, be successful, and then people would come in and say jeez you got a great culture here and we said oh, that is interesting, what is it?” Mountz relied on his own employees to help answer the question, which leadership folded into its DNA.
When asked in the below video what advice he has for founders, Mountz says “solve a big problem and take a big swing.” Adding, “when I told the early VC’s that I wanted to build hundreds of mobile robots, you’d get a lot of funny looks and I was told no at least 100 times and you just have to persist.”
Check out each video for additional insights, along with episodes I and II of this interview.
Past episodes of Founder Stories featuring leaders of Reddit, Tumblr, Kickstarter and Dropbox are here.