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August 18, 2012 06:00 pm GMT
Original Link: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/mLOpjbGjFk8/
Unicorns, Banana Suits, and 500 Startups; Just Another Night With Dave McClure
Editors note:DerekAndersenis the founder ofStartup Grind, a 20-city event serieshosted around the worldto help educate, inspire, and connect entrepreneurs. Hes an ex-Electronic Arts employee, as well as the founder of Commonred andVaporware Labs. Until a few weeks ago Id never met Dave McClure. Like many of you I have read all about him, casuallyTwitter followed him, and personally censored many of his YouTube videos over the past few years. After attending 500 Startups Demo Day earlier this month I was really impressed by the founders and their products which were as good or better than any Ive seen. The person I shook hands with at the end of that day was a soft spoken, humble guy who seems to be in full grind mode pushing 500 Startups to a new level. Last week I interviewed him atStartup Grindin Palo Alto. It was a nice week for McClure and the family. 500 Startups had just had its second anniversary, McClure was celebrating his 46th birthday, and one of his earliest investments, Wildfire, had sold to Google for $350MM. Prior to that he wrote two widely talked about blog posts,one on Techcrunchabout women in tech investing more, andanotherwhere he talked candidly about his entrepreneurial journey and struggle. In Aprilhe raiseda fresh $50MM fund adding two new partners, andForbes named500 Startups one of the top-10 Startup Incubators and Accelerators in the world. It’s been a good few months. The Journey To 500 Startups Dave grew up in West Virginia and Maryland where his father was an elementary school music teacher. After slugging through classes and graduating with anengineering and computer science degree at John Hopkins University, he took various programming roles, which led him to the West Coast where he founded his own consulting company called Aslan Computing. It was eventuallyacquired for under $1MM in what Dave described as, “spending 5-7 years doing a ton of work, for not very much money. It was more like a paid MBA and I wish I’d had that 5-7 years compressed to 1-2 years.” He adds, “There were a lot of things I learned that I would not have gotten as employee 300 at Paypal.” He joined Paypal in 2001 as a Marketing Director rubbing shoulders with future founders of Valley staples like LinkedIn, Yammer, YouTube, and Yelp. As Dave put it, he’s been”a witness to genius.” Following stints working with Mint, SimplyHired, and Stanford asOriginal Link: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/mLOpjbGjFk8/
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