Having launched Runkeeper in 2008 with the help of “moonlighting engineers” before closing a $10 million Series B round in late 2011, RunKeeper’s co-founder, Jason Jacobs speaks from experience when describing the whiplash entrepreneurs face when stepping out on their own.
In episode II of his Founder Stories conversation with host Chris Dixon, Jacobs characterizes the adventure this way. “The day you leave your job and the hourglass starts turning upside down in your savings that is a really scary, awful, stressful, exhilarating, tremendously exciting feeling. And then that basically doesn’t stop.”
Emotions expressed, Jacobs describes his vision for RunKeeper.
“There needs to be this kind of central console that ties all this [health] stuff together … the way that Facebook did that in social networking.” Aiming to be this central console, Jacobs adds “we opened up our API six months ago and … we have seen 50 completed integrations so far, and several hundred others in development.”
Before the interview wraps, Jacobs extends this piece of advice to the next generation of founders. “Figure out what you really want because following the decision path to build a big game changing next billion dollar company is totally different than building a highly successful small company that either gets acquired quickly or can see you to a sustaining pace.”
Make sure to watch the entire video to hear additional insights.
Past Founder Stories episodes featuring ZocDoc, Reddit, Tumblr, TripAdvisor, Birchbox, Warby Parker and many other startups are here.
Episode I of this interview is here.
Jason Jacobs is the co-founder & CEO of RunKeeper, a mobile fitness platform that incorporates a unique blend of tracking, sharing, analytics, and coaching to enable runners and other fitness enthusiasts to get motivated, stay motivated, and improve their results over time. RunKeeper started with a smartphone tracking app for runners and cyclists, and built up a large, passionate global community of millions of users. Over time, they’ve expanded to enable 3rd party apps, devices, and services across a...
Chris Dixon is a Partner at and co-founder of Founder Collective. He is also a contributing writer for TechCrunch. He previously was the CEO and Co-founder of SiteAdvisor, which was acquired by McAfee, and Hunch, which was acquired by eBay. In addition to his work with Founder’s Collective, Chris is a personal investor in early-stage technology companies, including Skype, TrialPay, DocVerse, Invite Media, Gerson Lehrman Group, ScanScout, OMGPOP, BillShrink, Oddcast, Panjiva, Knewton, and a handful of other startups that...
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