Freak’n Genius co-founder Kyle Kesterson is a creative guy. After quitting his job as a professional toy designer, he got a call from a friend inviting him to Startup Weekend. Though he initially dismissed it as too “geeky,” his friend wouldn’t let it go. The next morning, Kyle found himself surrounded by entrepreneurs, bitten by the startup bug.
“I saw a fit for where creativity worked with technology,” says Kesterson. “I got into the flow of sharing thoughts and ideas.” From there, he found ways to infuse his creativity into technology projects and startups, and eventually made his way into TechStars and the Kinect Accelerator.
Working with Microsoft Kinect, Kesterson has a front-row seat on some pretty futuristic technology. “This is the future,” he says. “We’re sitting in the driver’s seat with only the future to look into.”
The self-described “startup community junkie” is wary of those trying to jump into the trendy startup game just because it seems cool. “There’s a lot of fad and culture around startups and accelerators that people want to get in on,” he says. His advice for those thinking of taking the leap?
Have a support system, set expectations, and hold on tight. Here’s more from the latest episode of Nextcast:
Kyle Kesterson Co-founder of Freak’n Genius on Nextcast from Nextcast on Vimeo.
On tapping into his own creative energy in startups: “I got into the flow of sharing thoughts and ideas… It has been a mix of how can I pull on the enormous amount of creative juice and weirdness that I know that I bring to the table, and throw that on to the table to bring it to life.” (Minute 8:45)
On working with the Kinect technology: “We are faced with challenges of being part of an early market. It is definitely bleeding-edge technology.” (Minute 9:45)
On partnering with Microsoft: “The people that make up the organization are incredibly smart, incredibly keen, really passionate, and want to do things that are relevant and awesome.”(Minute 13:15)
Nextcast founder Jeff Dickey is passionate about technology, business and philosophy. He works as the chief cloud architect at Redapt, a Redmond-based cloud and big data infrastructure company. Additional reporting by Kate Stull. [Editor’s note: GeekWire is proud to partner with Jeff Dickey who produces the Nextcast entrepreneur interview series].
Previously: Matt Hulett’s startup advice: ‘Money makes you soft’…Rand Fishkin of SEOmoz on search, startups, sticking it out…Entrepreneur Dan Shapiro: Startups aren’t a science
