Do More Faster: TechStars Lessons to Accelerate Your Startup

Foreword

While entrepreneurs come in all shapes and sizes, they all share the drive to do things that have never been done before, the belief that they can accomplish anything they put their minds to, and the need to get everything done as fast as they can. For a first time entrepreneur, this can be daunting, but TechStars is like a turbo rocket booster for the beginning of the journey.

Zynga is my fourth company. When I started it, there were only a few venture capitalists who I wanted to work with, and Brad Feld was one of them. The last few years have been a wild ride. We talk about doing things at "Zynga Speed" so when Brad asked me to write a foreword for a book titled Do More Faster, I was humbled and eager to have the opportunity to share some thoughts, as this is a concept that is close to my heart.

If you aren't familiar with Zynga, we are the makers of popular social games such as FarmVille, FrontierVille, and Mafia Wars. When Brad's firm Foundry Group invested in Zynga in the fall of 2007, we were a team of 10 people. Today, three years later, we are a family of more than 1,200 people. To get there, we certainly had to do more faster.

Before starting my first company in the mid-1990s, I worked at several well-regarded companies. However, I was somewhat of a misfit. I challenged the status quo and didn't necessarily follow protocol. I was a bit naïve and rogue in my desire to deliver the smartest and most strategic results without being concerned with procedures. That wasn't ...