The decisions you make affect a lot of people. You have investors, employees, and customers who all rely on you. Being a leader is a 24-hour-a-day job.
From Jon Oringer
I started Shutterstock without any outside funding; I believe in creating a lean startup. By not taking outside investors early, I was forced to use every dollar I had as efficiently as possible. And I was able to keep a large part of the company.
I love meeting contributors and hearing how we inspire them to create art. I'm also proud of creating hundreds of jobs.
Nobody is opposed to paying taxes; governments need to coordinate, work together and simplify the law.
In the early days, start-ups make the main mistake of hiring people to do the work that they could do themselves.
In high school, I used to teach guitar and fix computers by the hour. I was looking for some way to make some cash, so I actually learned how to play guitar in order to try to teach it.
As I started college, I started to build software products that I could sell to people over the Web.
I figured managing people was obvious - I'd tell someone what they needed to do and they'd do what I wanted. It turns out that's not the case. It was frustrating at first.
At around 50 employees, you get to the point where you can't see what's going on all the time. So you start to have weekly check-ins, and you have days that go by without knowing exactly what's going on.
I've never been very flashy or high-profile.
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