This week I talk with Benjy Boxer, Founder of Parsec, a game streaming company! In this episode we talk about gaining startup experience working at other companies, managing risk, maintaining personal momentum, the importance of celebrating small wins, building a consumer-facing technology company and more!
Show Notes:
- 1:30- Building a company and not getting distracted by the product itself
- 2:05- Childhood with entrepreneurial parents
- 3:30- Growing up surrounded by the medical industry
- 5:12- Gaming as a kid
- 8:00- Going to business school rather than medical or law school
- 9:22- Post-business school; Working at the World Bank
- 10:30- Working at AOL
- 11:16- The acquisition side of business
- 12:12- Investor relations software
- 14:20- Helping venture capitalists manage their portfolios
- 14:52- Lesson learned with failing: “Believe and be driven to consistently work on something”
- 16:20- Hard conversations with co-founders
- 17:38- Joining Newscred and the opportunity to learn from a startup and a founder with a great reputation
- 19:40- Getting experience with “no risk”
- 20:05- Assumption that entrepreneurs are big into taking risks
- 21:18- Newscred project- Building a million dollar business in a year
- 24:22- Transition from building content management and licensing stuff to building Parsec gaming
- 26:09- The right time to start a company
- 28:14- Time shift data- You always want to work where time shift is going
- 28:45- Transitioning out of Newscred to Parsec full-time
- 29:35- First day kickoff feeling
- 30:27- Realizing the idea might actually work
- 33:55- Releasing a broken thing as your first version
- 35:03- Paying Parsec
- 36:37- Looking different than most New York tech companies
- 37:00- Keeping momentum up
- 38:06- Getting the next thing done while maintaining a stable thought process on your business
- 39:01- Being practical people and celebrating the wins
- 42:15- Seeing risks on the table for your company
- 42:55- Parsec as a consumer facing gaming company versus working with larger companies
- 48:00- “I enjoy owning lots of my company”
- 49:10- Using media as a way of entertaining and communicating with people
- 51:05- Looking ahead: The next year for Parsec
- 53:30- Go big or go home