Editor’s Note: This post was originally published on Seattle 2.0, and imported to GeekWire as part of our acquisition of Seattle 2.0 and its archival content. For more background, see this post.
By Jennifer Cabala
The co-founder of Posterous, Garry Tan, is a builder. He started as a teenager in high school, when he worked on web application development. Since then, he hasn’t slowed down. He worked as a program manager for Microsoft, co-founded Posterous.com, and co-founded the engineering team for Palantir Technologies. He will be speaking at StartupDay 2010 about “Building your Product.” We chatted with Tan about his pitch, the simplicity of Posterous, and the piece of advice that helped him transition from corporate life to startups.When did you know you wanted to be an entrepreneur? “I went to Stanford. It’s in the air. I think it’s one of the few colleges where everyone coming out knows they want to run their own thing someday.”
What was your last corporate job? “It was Microsoft’s Windows Mobile division on ActiveSync. I’ve worked at startups ever since.”
What was your first startup? “Posterous. We’re pretty thrilled that we’ve been able to build it as our first project, and we haven’t ever really deviated from the initial goal.”
How did you come up with the idea for Posterous? “Sachin (Agarwal) came up with the idea and built an initial prototype. I was blown away. Email had a certain elegance to it, and nobody had really looked at it as THE way to post.”
What will you be talking about at StartupDay? “What I will be talking about at StartupDay is ‘Building the Product.’ Building the right product requires a mix of very conflicting motivations. On the one hand, it requires incredible creativity. You must be able to break new ground and transcend the status quo. It requires you to be a contrarian who evaluates and rejects things that everyone accepts as true but makes no sense. On the other hand, it requires great restraint. You can’t boil the ocean, and the only way you can get meaningful feedback is by shipping real software.”
What is the best piece of advice you received? “If you want to be able to create and run your own show, never allow yourself to be boxed into one particular silo. You are not JUST an engineer, or JUST a PM or JUST a sales guy or JUST a designer. You must be willing to wear all hats and realize that you can excel or at least try to excel at all of them.”
To hear more about building a product from Garry Tan, and kick-starting your company from experienced entrepreneurs register today for StartupDay 2010. Tickets are limited.
